Educational Jargon Explained and Rated - Part III

With academies being the subject in current affairs this week, are you for one confused by the naming, the status, and the funding of English school systems past and present? Below I attempt to explain and the Life of Brian Quote seems apt :)

Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: F**k off! We're the People's Front of Judea 

Quote from Monty Python's Life of Brian (Handmade films, 1979)

Types of Private/Independent/Non-State/Public Schools: Kindergarten, Pre-Preparatory Schools, Preparatory Schools, Elementary, Boarding Schools, Senior School, Coeducational and Girls/Boys Schools, Special Schools


Types of Mainstream State Schools: Academies, Community Schools, Foundation and Trust Schools, Community and Foundation Schools, Voluntary Aided-Schools, Specialist Schools, Selected Schools, Faith Schools (Voluntary Controlled, Voluntary Aided), Grammar Schools, Maintained Boarding Schools, Comprehensives, High Schools, Sixth Form, Free Schools,


Private/Independent/Non-State Schools are Public Schools in the Private Sector

All of the Public Schools listed in the first paragraph above are independent and are funded, in the main, by tuition fee paying parents or trust funds set up by pupil’s relatives/benefactors, or by scholarships awarded

Mainstream State Schools are Public Sector Schools
Academies and Free Schools, are independent too but are of the state sector, and are free to those whose children are registered in them. They sit apart from any County Hall based Local Education Authority (LEA) department across the land, so, are NOT under LEA/Council control, but are directly funded by the Department of Education in Whitehall, with headteachers controlling the day to day running being overseen by individual charitable bodies called academy trusts. In the recent budget George Osborne will set out plans to end council control of England’s schools and turn them all into academies.
Schools in the state sector are funded by the compulsory taxation of Britain’s workforce, or, again, by scholarships awards. Pupils however, who are awarded a scholarship when attending a state funded institution usually spend their money on such things as books and computer equipment to aid their educational progress as the cost of their registration is already funded by tax payers as I have already said.

NB. Scholarships (bursaries) are financial aids for persons to use to further their education. They can be awarded to persons attending either the private or the public sector. They are awarded by many different organizations, charities, individuals, and foundations that have been set up specifically to give money in the form of grants. Also, teachers and well established schools and universities award scholarships.

Alternative Schools and HomeEducation receive no state funding: Waldorf education (also known as Steiner or Steiner-Waldorf education), Montessori Education, Home Education (Home Schooling)

Note: School is Not Compulsory in England and Wales


Blogger awards the complexity of English school systems and their bureaucratic and confusing set-ups, past and present with NIL points!

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