British Education system

[nbc%INF.RL.AC.UK@mitvma.mit.edu]

>From: katefans@world.std.com (Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City)
>Subject: Geiger, Katepoems & such
>Vickie here. Just a couple of quick (what, me quick? Hah!) things.
>
>Could someone tell me the American equivalent of "Forms"? (Freshman,
>Sophmore, Junior, Senior). I could figure it out but I'm too lazy.
>While we're at it, Kate got 10 "O" Levels. What are they? And what
>are "A" Levels? Someone told me once and I've totally forgotten.

A "form" is merely a class or year (i.e. group of children of c. the same
age) within the school. So it could be form 1, form 2 etc. or form A form B
etc representing different classes or age groups throughout the school.
In Kate's case it refers to her Secondary School (sometimes known as High
Schools) though Primary Schools can be divided into forms as well.
Some schools, like mine, confused the issue by starting with the 2nd
form and continuing: 3rd, 4th, Removes, 5th, Lower 6th and Upper 6th
(pretentious, moi?).

O Levels are Ordinary Level GCE Exams (General Certificate of Education)
and A Levels are Advanced Level GCE Exams. The former where taken at
the age of c. 16 and the latter at c. 18 and it was the results of
these which usually determined whether you could go on to read a
subject at university. There are probably new variations on this theme
these days. 10 O Levels is good though it really depends on the grades
Kate got and what the subjects are. You could do O Levels in Art, RI,
Cooking, Woodwork etc (no offence intended :-) ).

Be seeing you,
	Neil
--
Neil Calton                          UUCP:   ..!mcsun!ukc!rlinf!nbc
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