Read an article, try to understand without a dictionary, then read and translate it consulting a dictionary.

COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOLS

The comprehensive school was first officially defined in a Ministry of Education in 1947 as ‘one which is intended to cater for all the secondary education of all the children in a given area, without an organization in three sides’ (i.e. grammar, technical and modern).

The word ‘comprehensive’ expresses not only the idea that the schools in question take all the children of a given area, without selection, but also that they should offer a wider range of courses than any one of the traditional types of school. For this reason they are usually bigger than the traditional types.

Comprehensive education has been national policy since 1965, but the rate at which this policy is being implemented by local education authorities and the way in which it is being done vary widely from one part of the country to another.

Some of the comprehensive schools are simply country secondary schools, some are large purpose-built comprehensives on new housing estates, others are housed in older buildings often some distance apart. If a council decides on comprehensive schools, there is no selection by examination and all pupils go on from primary school to the comprehensive school in the area.

Many of these schools preserve the A, B, C relationship among the children, but the children are allowed to change streams according to their progress. Most, but not all of these schools have some kind of selection inside the school. The children make a choice of subjects they want to study. Most of the schools are mixed.

The comprehensive system is considered by many to be fair one, offering wider opportunities for many more pupils and giving the slower pupils a better chance of catching up.

Read the following words aloud.

[ei] – education, range, way, examination

[ai] – define, side, type, inside

Transcribe the words and read them

Opportunity, comprehensive, progress, according, selection, preserve, organization, ministry, distance, policy, system, consider

Find in what context the following word combinations are used. Read and translate the sentences with them:

Officially defined, all the children of a given area, local education authorities, large purpose-built comprehensives, some kind of selection, wider opportunities.

Write 10 questions on the text.

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Copy out of the text the sentences in the Passive Voice.

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Read the article and translate it in the written form

TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Technical schools are the heirs to the junior technical schools before 1944 which took pupils at 13 and prepared them for work in an industry or group of industries. The new secondary technical schools were planned as the academic equals of the grammar schools, but specializing in technical subjects. However, there were never many of these schools, and for various reasons they were widely considered inferior to the grammar schools.

It is hard to account for the failure of the technical schools to catch on. It is true that a lot of people in education have always thought them unnecessary, but they also have had very strong defenders. The chief difficulty was that although entry to them was competitive they remained overshadowed by the greater prestige of the grammar schools. Both parents and teachers tended to think of the technical schools as a second best. Some education authorities confirmed this by making it clear that children of a lower IQ could be accepted for technical schools after they had been rejected by the grammar schools. The impression was further confirmed by the fact that entry to technical schools remained at 13 and the grammar school rejects went to them after two years in a secondary modern school.

As one might expect, the technical school curriculum is basically similar to that of a grammar school, though it may not offer Latin and Greek, or more than one foreign language. It is doubtful whether technical schools do more mathematics or sciences than grammar schools but they certainly biased still towards particular trades like engineering or building. The pupils might get rather less history, geography, English literature and music. Out-of-school activities may play a smaller part than a grammar school.

Though the technical schools offer courses leading to the GCE they also prepare pupils for other external examinations like the Royal Society of Arts Technical and Commercial Certificate examinations.

Technical schools vary even more greatly in size than other secondary schools, but most of them have between 400 and 800 pupils. Many technical schools are subordinate to technical colleges whose buildings they share.

DES AND INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS