Can anyone in America explain your school system to me? - Comments

I just want to add that not everyone has the same schedule here. My school runs on blocks. I have four ninety-minute classes a day with 6 minute pass times and a 30 minute lunch. We have some quarter classes available (which end this week for quarter one), semester classes (which usually end mid-January), and year long classes (AP or Advanced Placement classes, which are basically college courses in a high school setting where you take an exam in each AP subject you take and recieve a score that can place you out of the entry levels of that area after high school).

Oh yeah. My school day runs from 7:30-2:10.

The classes we have here tend to differ from most schools. Overall, we have a lot more choices as to what electives we can pick. The requirements here are 4 math and english classes (taking up all four years of your high school career,) 3 social stuides and science classes, 2 foriegn language classes, 1&1/2 PE credits, 1 Fine arts (art, band, choir, drama/theater arts) and 1 personal finance class. We also have to have 9 electives, three of which need to be in the same area of intrest. The nine electives can be anything from more science/english classes, to driver's Ed, or medicial classes. We can learn CAD (computering aided design), agriculture, mythology, or take a bicycling class. We have a large variety of classes, more so than most schools.

At my school, we have 4-6 classes called blocks. They are different because they take up 2 regular class periods. But, during the first block, people can have two classes and switch to those. They're called flex classes, and typically are about 45 minutes.

My school day lasts from 8:15 to 3:30. But, the clocks here are set back five minutes, so that if you're late, you actually have five minutes to get to class. This bumps the time up from 8:20 to 3:35. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, we have hour lunch - where you can go anywhere in the school and eat or make up tests or homework. On wednesdays, though, we have what's called traditional lunch - 30 minutes to eat, and another 30 minutes devoted to reading. The principal believes that reading is the base of learning, so we're pretty devout about the reading. Another schedule change we have is usually on Fridays - which, typically, is when we have pep rallies. They do them to get us hyped up for the football game on Saturday. We have a regular schedule, but we get out of our 3rd block about 30 minutes early. We go on to fourth and stay our regular time, then go up to our football field.
We have a five minute break between classes, to go to your locker or just to talk for a little while. Most people go to the bathroom if they need to.

Our year is divided in two periods, called semesters. Usually, your classes change during this time and you have a new schedule.

Hope it helps. (:

It depends on where you go to school, so you have a little bit of leeway.

But, like the others said, you enter high school as a Freshmen (grade 9) in which you're usually age 14 or 15
Sophomore (grade 10) at age 15/16
Junior (grade 11) at age 16/17
Senior (grade 12) at age 17/18

If you're young, you could bump those ages down a year and it would still be considered normal.

High school is usually from 8:20am to 3:10 or so pm, but there is a high school near us who run from 7:20am to 2:10pm.

You generally have one language (usually between Spanish, French, Latin, or German), one English, a science, a math, and a social study, and an elective (art, theatre, music, etc.).

Different school systems use a wide variety of different schedules. My school, for instance, has eight periods a day which consist of seven 47-minute long classes and a 30 minute lunch. Our grading year runs by different 9-weeks markers with a semester ending every 18 weeks.
There's also school systems that use four classes a day, alternating between an A schedule and a B schedule to get all eight classes in. Each of these classes, then, runs for about an hour and a half with a 30 minute lunch.
There are others that are way more complecated to explain, so you probably wouldn't want to use them in a story.
Other grading periods would be things like semesters and trimesters, which (I'm pretty sure, but don't quote me on this) means that you get a grade on your record twice or three times depending.

In between classes, there are usually five minutes to get to your next class, converse, go to your locker, the bathroom, wander around, whatever.

Graduation requirements also differ between school systems. For instance, my requirements are two years of math, two years of science, and four years of English, and a certain amount of . Those are the minimum requirements. (My school is rather low class).

It depends on who you talk to as to what you'll get as far as schools go, honestly. ^___^"

Just remember that if you're writing about a small school, then you won't have very many classes to choose from and your character might not be able to be happy.

Kindergarten is ages 5-6, 1st grade is ages 6-7, 2nd grade is ages 7-8, 3rd grade is ages 8-9, 4th grade is ages 9-10, 5th grade is ages 10-11, 6th grade is ages 11-12, 7th grade is ages 12-13, 8th grade is ages 13-14, 9th grade (freshman) is ages 14-15, 10th grade (sophomore) is ages 15-16, 11th grade (junior) is ages 16-17, and 12th grade (senior) is ages 17-18. Of course if you start early it would be, like, kindergarten at age 4 and so on. But I'm pretty sure you have people who have been left back or skipped a grade in the UK. :)

I graduated highschool at age 17 as a senior. You can only graduate as a senior, or else you've dropped out and have to get your GED if you want anyone to take you seriously. The GED is a highschool equivalency test which basically says you didn't finish highschool but you took the test that means you're basically as smart as someone who did. School time tables are usually set up in periods, although some areas of America have blocks. My schools both had eight periods (I moved halfway through highschool). Obviously it was first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. In the first school I had lunch as fourth period, though. XD In the new one, it was fifth period. Periods are usually about forty minutes long and we have a five-minute period in between classes to go to the locker and so on.

Lessons are pretty much the same as in the UK. Basics, like math and English and so on. We're required (to graduate) to have three years of math (most times Alegbra, Geometry, then Alegbra II), three years of science (Earth Science, Life Science, Biology, whatever, it doesn't matter as long as it's science), four years of English (English I, English II, English III, and English IV), and two years of any foreign language although it can't be one year of Spanish and one year of French. It's two of the same language. (French I and French II, or Spanish Basics and Spanish I, whatever). No religion classes are required unless you go to a private school. Most times public school kids have differing schedules because they're so big so pretty much every student has a different schedule, but private schools often have the class take all their classes together with a few differing electives. That's because there are only 20-25 kids in private school classes. My public school class (of freshmen) was 500+ kids. But my private school junior and senior class was only like 20. XD

Homeroom differs; in my public school it was in between second and third period and lasted nine minutes. In private, it was before first period and lasted twenty minutes. That's just random from school to school. And after school we have a free period where we're allowed to go to our clubs or whatever but we can't loiter.

I hope that's everything. Just ask if you need anymore. :)

I'll give it a go. (: Researching for stories is tough, so I'm more than happy to help.

Freshman: 14 - 15 years old
Sophomore: 15 - 16 years old
Junior: 16 - 17 years old
Senior: 17 - 18 years old

Therefore, one would typically graduate high school at age seventeen
or eighteen, depending on your birthday and when graduation day is.

My school time table, on a regular day, is like this:

Homeroom: 8.00-8.15 AM
First Period: 8.20-9.05 AM
Second Period: 9:10-9.55 AM
Break: 9.55-10.10 AM
Third Period: 10.15-11.00 AM
Fourth Period: 11.05-11.50 AM
Lunch: 11.50 AM-12.40 PM
Fifth Period: 12.45-1.30 PM
Sixth Period: 1.35-2.20 PM
Seventh Period: 2.25-3.10 PM

So, there's a five minute 'passing time' between periods / classes.
& a little side note, some schools have eight classes instead of seven.
Not sure if that will be an issue, but yeah, that is my schedule. {:

We leave highschool at 17/18. You're generally 18 by the time you start college.
Freshman are typically 14
Sophmores are 15
Juniors are 16
Seniors are 17

My school runs on trimesters, which is three marking periods. Other schools run on semesters, which is two marking periods.
I have five seventy two minute classes per day.
I'm guessing academic requirements are the sane as yours, roughly....
Hope that helped!
If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me :)