Question

[briarwood]

I have a hopefully easy research question for my US friends - about the way the school system works. I know there are differences state-to-state, but I'm just looking for a rough idea.

In the UK, assuming you live in the same place throughout your childhood, you'll probably go to either two or three different schools. I went to three: "Infant" school from five to eight, "Junior" school from eight to eleven, and high school from eleven until eighteen.

Does it work approximately that way in the US? I get that impression from TV, at least.

Basically, this is background for my SPN fic: I'm looking for how old the boys would have been at a time when they were both school age but weren't at the same school. (Dean is four years older than Sam.)

ETA: Answered in record time! Thanks, guys :-)

Comments

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Mostly, yes, though it could depend on the population of your town. For instance, with us, our school is kindergarten through 8 before going to high school, though a nearby town has schools that are K-4 and then 5 - 8, plus the high school. But then we're a very rural state. It's likely to be quite different in more populated areas.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

Here in areas with a very small population you'd normally stay at the same school until 11 or 12.

So...age eight or eleven is when you might move to a new school?

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

If you're thinking 4th grade, more likely 9 or 10.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

LOL...it's when someone says "grade" that I get lost. It just doesn't correspond to the way they numbered the years when I was in school.

But I think my question's been answered :-) Thanks!

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Basically, yes, but it varies depending on the size of the community. In suburban and urban school districts, you're in "elementary school" from age 5 to age 10-12 (some end elementary after 5th grade, some after 6th). "Middle school" is 6th-8th in my district, so ages 11-14, roughly. "High school" is ages 14-18. It's not uncommon in less densely-populated areas for the primary school to run from kindergarten to 8th grade (ages 5-14, approx.), though the older kids would be in a separate part of the building from the younger ones. In very lightly-populated areas there are still K-12 schools, but these have become quite rare.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

That's great. Thanks for the info!

[geonncannon.livejournal.com]

The way my school worked (in a suburb of a large-ish city)... I went to elementary school from K-6, then to middle school from 7-8, then I had MidHigh/High School from 9-12. 9-12 was technically in two different buildings, but they were right next to each other. So, yeah.

In that scenario, Sam could be in fourth grade (around 9 years old) and Dean would be in seventh (about 12). Or fifth/eighth. Sam in seventh and Dean in Ninth would work, too.

That's very confusing, I think. Sorry.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

Not confusing at all.

Sounds like I want Dean to be 12, which will work. It's just a background thing anyhow, but I want it to sound right.

[geonncannon.livejournal.com]

Good to know! I was just worried about all those numbers (I'm so not a numbers person ;-D)

[howlsthunder.livejournal.com]

Here its broken up differently (the age I note is the age the child is when entering that grade. Kids generally have a birthday during that grade and will be a year older when leaving unless they already had their birthday just before school started or they were born later and started school early):

• Preschool (optional) - any age before 5 (I didn't go)
• Kindergarten - age 5. Usually a half-day.
• Elementary School - grades 1-5 (sometimes 1-6), age 6-10
• Middle School/Junior High (same thing, two names. It used to be that 6-8 was a Middle school while 7-8 was a jr.high but now its interchangeable). Ages 11-13
• High School: grades 9-12, referred to as Freshman, Sophmore, Junior, and Senior years rather than grade numbers. Ages 14-17

An easy way to figure out your age for that grade is to add 5, adjusting for when your birthday was. For me, my birthday is halfway through the school year so say in 7th grade I started as age 12 (7+5) and exited at age 13.

Also, depending on the funding and stuff, not all schools have the grades together. In my town, grades K-2 are in one school while 3-5 is in another, though when I was young, it used to be 3-6 until overcrowding became an issue - it seems most schools in the state then started putting all 6th grades into the "middle-school" and stopped calling them "junior highs". It seems to me that most populated areas are broken up as stated above. You only get all the grades combined in villages/tiny towns and private schools.