EDUCATION

LEAD-IN: In pairs, ask and answer the questions below.

1) What was your best education stage?
2) Did you use to have any favourite subject?
3) What would you change of your school years?

1. Discuss the differences, if any, between these groups of words.

Private school/public school/state school university/college/school student/pupil
Teacher/professor/lecturer/tutor kindergarten/playgroup/junior school graduate/expel

2. Now complete the passage below by filling the gaps with the correct forms of the words below.
*NOTE not all of these words are used; some words are used more than once.

attend attain continue do enhance get

go to graduate learn leave offer public
state study take go start get

Like most children in England, Christine ____________ school when she was five.
She _______________ to St John’s Junior School in Clapham, London, which was a _________
school i.e. it was run by the government. Later she ____________ to a state secondary school
nearby.
A lot of her friends __________ school when they were sixteen and found jobs, but Christine wanted
to _________ university so she stayed on in the sixth form. She ____________ good grades in her
‘A’ level exams and was _____________ a place at London University, where she
______________ English. She _______________ in 1998, when she was 21.
After _____________ university she found a secretarial job with a travel company. However, she
decided that she really wanted to be a teacher, so she __________ a Bachelor of Education course
part-time while she was working. She ____________ a lot about teaching methodology and child
psychology, which she found very interesting.

3. Education in the UK. How much do you know about the British education system? Do the quiz
in pairs.

1. “Homework are not allowed in British schools”: True or False?

2. Which is the most common type of school in England?
a) Comprehensive schools b) Grammar schools c) Boarding schools
3. Students in England need to wear uniforms until they are in...
a) 11 b) 14 c) 16
4. What does GCSE stand for?
5. What is the “Sixth Form”?
6. How many exams do students take in the A-Levels?
7. A prefect at a school is a student that is...
a) the teacher’s pet b) in charge of registration in class c) punished for misbehaviour
8. Is it compulsory for English students to study a foreign language?
9. An average undergraduate tuition fee at University ranges from...pounds per year
a) 4000-6000 b) 2000-3000 c) 6000-8000
10. “All the countries in the UK have the same educational system”: True or False?
11. The curriculum is:
a) common for all school b) varies depending on the type of school c) changes every two years
12. If inspectors judge a school as inadequate, it is likely to close down in a maximum of two years: T
or F?
 4. You are going to listen to Richard Gerver, International speaker and educationalist who, in just
2 years, transformed a school judged as inadequate by Ofsted into one of the most acclaimed
learning environments in the world. Try to answer these questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ZtCiZlOlw

a) Why did he visit Grange Primary School for the first time?

b) Why did he like about the school the first time he walked in?

c) Why hadn’t the school been judged as outstanding in the last 10 years?

d) Which two principles did Gerver follow to recover the place’s sense of community and passion?

5. Listen to the interview one more time and fill in the gaps with a maximum of 4 words.

1) Grange primary was in a lists of schools targeted for _______________

2) Before being a head teacher, Gerver was involved in a project to ______________ in reading and
writing.
3) What ________________Gerver about Grange Primary was that it didn’t feel like a failing school.
4) He found that there was a kind of ________________for the school.
5) Over a period of 10 years, Grange had gone onto _______________________
6) Gerver’s number one job was to ________________________ of the place.
7) One principle Gerver followed was “absolute focus on ____________________________”
8) The 2nd principle that guided his role as head teacher was to _______________________”

6. Do you agree with Gerver’s principles? Below are some of the biggest challenges in school
education. Rank them in order of importance and discuss how they can be addressed. Can
you think of other challenges?

 Raising the professional status of teaching

 Reducing disparities between schools
 Designing a 21st-century curriculum
 Promoting flexible learning arrangements focused on growth
 Identifying and meeting the needs of children on trajectories of low achievement

To find out more, click this link:

https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/columnists/geoff-masters/big-five-challenges-in-school-education
KEY
2.
Like most children in England, Christine started school when she was five.
She went to St John’s Junior School in Clapham, London, which was a state school i.e. it was run by the
government. Later she went to a state secondary school nearby.
A lot of her friends left school when they were sixteen and found jobs, but Christine wanted to go to
university so she stayed on in the sixth form. She got good grades in her ‘A’ level exams and was offered
a place at London University, where she studied English. She graduated in 1998, when she was 21.
After leaving university she found a secretarial job with a travel company. However, she decided that she
really wanted to be a teacher, so she took a Bachelor of Education course part-time while she was
working. She learned a lot about teaching methodology and child psychology, which she found very
interesting.
4. You are going to listen to Richard Gerver, International speaker and educationalist who, in just
2 years, transformed a school judged as inadequate by Ofsted into one of the most acclaimed
learning environments in the world. What does he say about…?
1. Why did he visit Grange Primary School for the first time?
Because he was asked to go there by the local government to invite the school to participate in a
project to improve kids’ reading and writing skills
2. Why did he like about the school the first time he walked in?
Their profound sense of community
3. Why hadn’t the school been judged as outstanding in the last 10 years?
Because external people, in their attempt to impose a structure, a system, strategies, had deprived
the place of its soul.
4. Which two principles did Gerver follow to recover the place’s sense of community and passion?
1) The school had to be about the kids and everybody else just had to fall into line
2) Everything they did was going to be built around the idea of experience

5. Listen to the interview one more time and fill in the gaps with a maximum of 4 words.

1) Grange primary was in a lists of schools targeted for possible closure.

2) Before being a head teacher, Gerver was involved in a project to raise boys’ achievement in
reading and writing.
3) What struck Gerver about Grange Primary was that it didn’t feel like a failing school.
4) He found that there was a kind of deep passion for the school.
5) Over a period of 10 years, Grange had gone onto a spiral of decline.
6) Gerver’s number one job was to find the heartbeat of the place.
7) One principle Gerver followed was “absolute focus on developing our children first”
8) The 2nd principle that guided his role as head teacher was to truly engage people.
1.