Today, at Birmingham City University is the first time we got in depth on the education system in England specifically. There was so much covered in the special education system, it was truly mind blowing to see how their systems all come together into one. I learned so much from Elizabeth Titley, who gave the class an introduction to the UK school systems. Early education includes birth  to age 5, primary school includes 5 through 11 year olds, lastly, secondary school includes 12 to 16 year olds. The system gets super complicated the more you get into it. An example of that is when you finish secondary school at 16 years old, you can technically be done with school if you wanted to. However, you can not leave education until you are 18 years old. In order to stay in education you could start an apprenticeship, work part time and go to school but you can not go to work full time. 

Some of the British schools follow a guide known as the National Curriculum. It is a part of the 1988 education reform act. Before the reform act every school had control over what they taught and how they taught it. Now, with the new curriculum there were 11 subjects that the ages 5-16 had to complete. They are laid in certain years so that if a child would move they would still be on the same page as if they never left their school. Even though this is the perfect outline for all schools, only public schools had to follow the curriculum. America should one hundred percent implement something that in local areas or statewide so that in case a parent needed to move for work or any other reason, a child can be caught up on subjects they need to know. 

Comparing and contrasting the US and the UK schools becomes a difficult task for me. I now know a lot about the UK schools, however I only know about public schools and universities in America. I never had to think about a private school or university or look into one. I know with the UK and the US, they both have a “head start” program where children are put for pre-k classes. The school choices in England are endless, there are 7 different types of schools that a parent can choose to send their child to or the child can decide. I believe America only has public, private and charter schools. In the early childhood setting the UK has people called Childminders. The childminders are the biggest providers with 31.2k settings. They are almost like the babysitters of America, however the childminder is a more formal, serious position. I believe that America should really implement this job because it allows for a more personal and homey feeling for the child. This allows children to feel more comfortable in the environment. 

In the UK, the healthcare workers, the teachers and the social workers all come together to give children the best care of life and education possible. I really admire and appreciate the UK teams because of how bonded and passionate they are about their jobs. In the US, those 3 main workers barely come together to solve an issue, one is just told a fact and they just piggyback the problem. If the US could implement systems like this, I feel children would feel less like a burden and more like people are trying to help. The three jobs working together makes so much sense when the speakers present the information and what each of them do to help the other out. Without just one of the jobs, it would fall apart because in a way they all need each other so they can give a child everything they could possibly need. 

Questions I still have about the education system include:

What kind of jobs do the teens that don’t go back to school do? (majority wise)

Why did England get away from letter grading and now use numbers to calculate grades? 

How many special education schools are there in the UK, are they helpful? Or do they make the children feel less included?