Prefects/Forms? (was Re: Question From A befuddled American)

[vheggie at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26474


[snippety snip]
>    Uh, streaming? Is that anything like 'tracking'
> which means seperating students into groups aimed at
> college or at vocational schools, a practice extremely
> controversial here in America.

'Streaming' involves spearating students up into groups according to 
their ability - remember that in the UK, children take exams in 
specific subejcts at 16 and 18, rather than relying on an overall 
school grade, like a GPA.
In streamed lessons, kids (in theory) get to work at their 'own 
levels' - so, in other words, mathematically able children might do 
advanced maths in order to achieve a top grade, whilst the majority 
of their year concentrate on the core syllabus in order to pass.
It's also possible to stream classes in order to allow some pupils to 
take their exams early, if they can.

Streaming is different for each class - a child who is 'top group' 
in, say French, may not be in 'top group' for maths.

In my experience, schools tended to have one or two 'top groups', and 
then leave the rest unstreamed/mixed-ability; it is also possible 
that not all subjects are streamed - at my high school, only foreign 
languages and maths were separated by ability.