England; puplic elite schools

[Starbreaker]

Are we talking about schools for dogs?

 

[K'Ehleyr]

Son's boarding school was co-ed.
For the first couple of years he was in a room of 4 ~ all arranged so you had privacy.
Then you had a room of 2 and finally your own room.
The days are long, but there is also lots of sports, music, discussion groups and other interests.
The school had huge grounds and he spent many a lovely afternoon walking the Master's dogs.
And as Pingfah points out ~ the holidays are much longer!

TN Have a look at www.christ's_hospital.org.uk
It's really not that bad

 

[scotpens]

I recall reading somewhere that Britain's privately funded “public” schools were originally so called because they had no religious restrictions, as opposed those that only admitted Church of England members or Catholics.

school uniforms stop kids from getting into stupid fights about who's dressed as a emo, a skater, a chav, a punk, etc. or who has a posher frock than someone else.

Yes, I've got nothing against uniforms. My brother attended a private prep school that required uniforms, and he was none the worse for it. Got a pretty decent education too. Today he has a Ph.D. and he's a history professor at the University of Toronto.

 

[Mary Ann]

Heya,

Have to be quick.
What shocked me, is that the puplic schools, and yes I mean privat schools like Eton, seem to be very effecience when it comes to academic education, but they seem to steal away the very soul of the child... like the importance of just enjoying a slow walk in the beauty of nature or whatever. The day seems to be VERY full and busy, with nearly no time for oneself and nearly no privacy, like sleeping in a room with at least 12 other students, in the past the teacher said it were 60 in one room...and they have to go for one time a week to a military service, so they are already officers at the end of school and the whole day is very orginised, its one sex only, (Officer Training Corps) many are boy schools. He said its like a mixture of barracks (military), monastry and prison. And they first stopped beating children in 1999.
Well besides the monastry, but you maybe could put in "loyaltity to the staate" it seems the perfect fit for Cardassians. Dont you think?

TerokNor

My kids' school day is long but they have enough spare time to finish most of their homework before they come home, which is several hours' worth most days. In Middle Fifth (Year 10) they will have to either join the Army, Navy, or RAF Cadet Corps or do voluntary community work under the Duke Of Edinburgh Award scheme. There certainly aren't any beatings, and they actually get away with a lot of harmless fun. Of course the school is stricter overall than any of the local comps but my kids love it there. Shame that they don't give full scholarships, only up to 40% of the tuition.

K'Ehleyr, your son had a very snazzy uniform indeed! My kids wear the standard trousers/kilt and blazer combination, with ties only for the boys, to my daughter's relief. Also, their school stopped taking boarders when they began to take in girls 8 or 9 years ago. The school was established in 1655, so it's been there a while.

 

[scotpens]

Any non-Brit whose mind conjures up visions of Tom Brown's Schooldays when British public schools are mentioned is about 150 years behind the times.

For example, “fag” used to mean something else besides a cigarette. But they don't do that anymore, right?

 

[Captain Shaw]

school uniforms stop kids from getting into stupid fights about who's dressed as a emo, a skater, a chav, a punk, etc. or who has a posher frock than someone else.

of course, it won't stop kids picking on others cuz one's got £5 sneakers and the other's got £50 Nike Air Jordans or some shit like that. *cough*

Also some state schools use uniforms has a way to keep the poor kids out by making the uniform so expensive.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

school uniforms stop kids from getting into stupid fights about who's dressed as a emo, a skater, a chav, a punk, etc. or who has a posher frock than someone else.

of course, it won't stop kids picking on others cuz one's got £5 sneakers and the other's got £50 Nike Air Jordans or some shit like that. *cough*

Also some state schools use uniforms has a way to keep the poor kids out by making the uniform so expensive.

My friend has just gotten his son in to a very good school, the uniform alone is costing him hundreds.

 

[Captain Shaw]

school uniforms stop kids from getting into stupid fights about who's dressed as a emo, a skater, a chav, a punk, etc. or who has a posher frock than someone else.

of course, it won't stop kids picking on others cuz one's got £5 sneakers and the other's got £50 Nike Air Jordans or some shit like that. *cough*

Also some state schools use uniforms has a way to keep the poor kids out by making the uniform so expensive.

My friend has just gotten his son in to a very good school, the uniform alone is costing him hundreds.

If a school is a state school they should not be allowed to have a uniform that cost hundreds of pounds.
They did not happen to ask for a donation by any chance before they told him that his son could have a place

 

[Holdfast]

Aren't public schools and private schools the same thing? How would you differentiate between them?

All Public schools and Private schools are independent, but you wouldn't call a Private school a Public school unless the headmaster is a member of the Headmasters' Conference.

Quite right too. Have to keep the riff-raff out.

I'm still waiting to find out what shocked the OP so much, and why he considers public schools to be Cardassian

Even after his explanation, I'm still waiting...

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Only Cardassian like hard punishment thing i can remember at school was the the dreaded corporal punishment, 6 of the belt, although there were a few teachers who would give you 8, i remember one time getting 6 in one class for talking and then getting another 6 in the class directly after it for coming in to class 5 mins late....actually drew blood, but he was quite a considerate teacher, he gave me a bandage to wrap round my hand and then stuck me at the back of the class and it was back to lessons...modern studies if i remember correctly....Good days.

 

[Angela 0077]

Aren't public schools and private schools the same thing? How would you differentiate between them?

Well in Australia the public schools are run by the goverment while the private schools get there own funding.
I work at a elite private school and there is abit of difference but l was surprised to find that the there was no aircondirioning in the buildings where if you go public they have this.

 

[Count Zero]

Obviously, we were discussing the situation in Great Britain, where the famous (or not so famous) 'public schools' are actually private schools. As explained above, this has nothing to with their funding but with the fact that they're not religious schools.

 

[TerokNor]

My language teacher spoke from the time he had been in one of those schools...so yeah its some time ago. He said they have improved now, but they still sounded to me like places I would rather not be to be honest. Too strict, not enough privacy...
Hmm...but then guess everything has advantages and disadvantages...

By the way... at the moment I just could "kill the English language". I tought my English would be intermediate, but at the moment I feel more like a beginner. There are so many words I have never heard, that I not even can speak or write...and the xxxxxx grammar drives me crazy!!!!!!! Will I ever learn it??? *sigh*
Though I have to say the teachers here manage to make grammar somewhat interessting and not totally dry and boring.

TerokNor

 

[Pingfah]

^ Looks like you're doing fine to me. You write better English than a lot of English people, to be sure.

 

[Deckerd]

Vicky Pollard video clip. Except I don't know how to do them.

 

[Pingfah]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNHMgapLAyo[/yt]

You just put yt tags around the URL.

 

[captcalhoun]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFfIMgDgTxA[/yt]

 

[Count Zero]

If David Tennant had been my English teacher I would have paid much more attention in class, that's for sure.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNHMgapLAyo[/yt]

If you had trouble understanding that, TerokNor, here's this for comparison:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwcub8TWrYY[/yt]

 

[TerokNor]

I cannot listen to the videos at the moment, but will do so as soon as I am home again.

And thanks Pingfah, however we went through all the tenses, conditional clauses and stuff again and I think I made every mistakes possible. And we had a grammar test and I out of 47 questions I had 24 wrong. Quite a lot.
And then there are all the hidden meanings inbetween the lines...
And when it comes to speaking and understanding English many of the others were a lot better compared to me.
Need to do something about that. But the only thing that comes to my mind there are English DVDs...though I always watch them with english subtitle, so its more reading than listening really. But watching DVDs is different to a real conversation where you take an acrive part and have to react spontaniously.
By the way did you know that English really has a lot more words than German? I always thought somehow English had lesser words. Hmm.. it has 1.5 million words, while German only has (I think it was) 0.5 million words...and French even has even fewer ... 0.25 million words I think.
Of course one doesn't need to know all of them, even native spakers don't, but I am wondring why English has so many more words?
How many words does one has to know for speaking a language well (+ the grammar of course)? 10000?
Maybe I should just start reading a dictionary and try to memorize it or something like that.
Allright I'll stop babbling now. *g* Its raining outside, today is the last day and one of the few days were I have Computer access here and all the other flying home today or early tomorrow, while I stay on for 6 more days, so I feel a bit lonely right now and have nothing better to do.

TerokNor

 

[Count Zero]

English is one of the languages richest in words. It's mainly due to it adopting words from various languages. It started out as a Germanic language with Germanic words, then adopted a lot of Latin words, then a lot of French words. That's why there are often two or more words for the same thing. However, most of these words aren't in use anymore, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
When I learned English at school, I could use all the tenses perfectly but when I went to England as an exchange student, I found out that most people in England don't use them.
I think you're having the right idea with the original version DVDs. Try watching them without the subtitles. You won't understand everything at first, but after a while you'll get better at it. (I recommend Doctor Who for that because it also has plenty of different British accents in it.)
Also, having conversations in English is the best training, I think. Don't be embarrassed about any mistakes you might make, just talk and listen and your English will improve.
I have no idea how many words one has to know to be good at English. There's this thing called Basic English with word lists that can be expended (you might want to check them out instead of just memorising the dicitionary ). According to them, the list with 2000 words compares to standard English, so I guess the answer to your question is 2000 words or more.