Education in Europe

During our last project meeting a special lesson was organised, enabling European pupils present, to compare theur schoollives.

Here’s the report of class 4tD of the host school.

IES Josep Miquel Guàrdia Rosa, Mari Carmen, Roberto, Khadija, Abbie, Ramon and Jessi. 4tD

As pupils from 5 different European countries visited us, the pupils of 4tD prepared a questionnaire:

Education in Europe, questionnaire by 4tD

in order to find what education in these countries is like.

Here there is some information about their similarities and differences.

DID YOU KNOW THAT ?

• All the schools are state schools. • Radyr School is the only one whose pupils wear a uniform. • Salzmannschule and The German and the Italian schools are language schools. • The German school is a boarding school. • In Wales the first language is English and the second is Welsh. • In all the schools apart from IES Josep Miquel Guàrdia they call their teachers by Miss, Mrs and Mr. • Radyr school is the only school where you can learn Welsh. • In Salzmannschule pupils can learn many languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Russian , English, Spanish and German. • The Italian school has class on Saturdays and the German pupils do school from Monday to Thursday and the next week from Monday to Saturday. • In Samuel de Missy, they start at 8:20 and they finish at 17:00. • Apart from the Spanish school, the schools have an hour for lunch. • The Italians get the longest summer holidays. • The Germans only have 6- week-long summer holidays. • In Samuel de missy, the pupils don’t have lockers. • In Radyr Comprehensive school they have lots of facilities such as a swimming-pool and a gym. • In Radyr Comprehensive school, boys and girls don’t do PE together. • Liceo Linguistico “Giacomo Leopardi” in Italy has the fewest number of pupils. • In Salzmannschule school, half the pupils go to school by train. • The Welsh can’t repeat the year.

Some of the European pupils’ opinions:

• Most subjects are compulsory in Spain; but in Wales only a couple of subjects are compulsory. In Wales you are allowed to drop subjects making it a lot less; everywhere else almost all subjects are compulsory.

• According to me, I’m a lucky person because I don’t go to school in the afternoon but also unlucky because I have to do homework. I think that pupils have too long holidays because during the year they work a lot and they deserve 3 months holidays like me.

• It is good to stay in a big school but I think that in a little school the relationship with teachers and pupils is better.

• In my opinion, I’m lucky because I have a lot of holidays in summer and I think that the German school is very hard but the pupils have a very good education.

• The German school is rather the same as the French one: it’s a rather little school. They don’t wear uniforms and finish at 3 pm.*

• I like the Spanish school because there are not so many pupils in each class. I think that in smaller classes you can learn more. I also like the relationship between the pupils. Everybody knows everybody !!

• What we like the most about school in Italy is that every year you can choose between three different trips to three different countries: Spain, Wales and Germany. In this way, you can improve your vocabulary, pronunciation and so on. Unfortunately, our school is a little small, but sometimes it’s great because you can work better all together.

• The Spanish school is really nice because the teachers are gentle and the school is not too big, not too small. The days finish around 3 * whereas in France school finishes at 5 pm.

• My school is a special school of languages, so I love learning foreign languages in my school. I also lik ethe great relationship between pupils and teachers and the many trips we make. I don’t like that we havent’ that many lessons for sciences like Maths, so that we have to study for them even harder. Our summer holidays aren’t long, only 6 weeks.

• I think that all of the other schools have much smaller classes than in Wales. This would make a better teacher-pupil relationship, and help learn faster.

• It is shocking the fact that in Germany they study so many languages, especially as they are so hard such as Russian and Chinese.

• I am jealous that the French get so many holidays; I wish in Italy there were that many because it would help to break up the school year, which seems to be never ending.

• It’s interesting that in Germany every year the students can go to a different place for a different amount of time.

• I think that it is really useful to have a lot of students in your school like in Wales, Germany, France and Spain because the more people you know, the better it is.