Schools

Schools

A school is most commonly a place designated for learning. The range of institutions covered by the term varies from country to country.

In many countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, a school may also be a partially autonomous or indeed entirely separate institution, not necessarily a part of a system of compulsory public education at all, dedicated to learning within one particular field, such as a school of economics (e.g. the London School of Economics), a school of dance, or a school of journalism.

Europe

In much of continental Europe, the term school usually applies to primary education, with primary schools that last between six and nine years, depending on the country. It also applies to secondary education, with secondary schools often divided between Gymnasien and vocational schools, which again depending on country and type of school take between three and six years. The term school is rarely used for tertiary education, except for some upper or high schools (German: Hochschule) which are more accurately translated as colleges.
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United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the term school refers primarily to pre-university institutions, and these can, for the most part, be divided into primary schools (sometimes further divided into infant school and junior school), and secondary schools. School performance is monitored by Ofsted in England, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education in Scotland, and Estyn in Wales.
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North America

In North America, the term school can refer to any institute of education, at any level and covers all of the following: preschool (for toddlers), kindergarten, elementary school, middle school (also called intermediate school or junior high school, depending on specific age groups and geographic region), high school, college, university, and graduate school.
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United States

In the United States, school performance through high school is monitored by each state's Department of Education. Many of the earlier public schools in the United States were one-room schools where a single teacher taught seven grades of boys and girls in the same classroom. Beginning in the 1920s, one-room schools were consolidated into multiple classroom facilities with transportation increasingly provided by kid hacks and school buses. The oldest school in the USA is Collegiate School, founded 1628.