Need to know about the US school system

Hey, I’m from the UK so I literally have no idea how the schooling system is within the US. I want to know about the school year timetable (holidays, exams, prom and so on).
Within the UK we have a week holiday within a term, known as half term holidays. Then a full term holiday will usually be at Christmas and at Easter, with the summer holiday being at the end of the academic year (end of July to early September).

I do realise that it can differ from one another but I just want a general idea. Also, how is the school day like too, starting time and the ending time too?

Thanks for any help and sorry for the odd questions, just want a better understanding for my story.

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Thanks for that!

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I am from the U.S. and in middle school at least. There are six periods during the day such as math, english, pre engineering/fax, A/B, us history, and life science.
As for holidays and breaks we have most of hours on Christmas and beyond, Christmas break usually about 9 days, spring break usually a week, and we have other important holidays off such as labor day.
Of course not all states and districts do it the same but that’s what we do at my middle school in Minnesota.
For tests and such we have MEAs around the end of the year, which are like our finals, they’re in math, english, and english. There are also other smaller scattered tests throughout the year but those are the teachers fault.

Again I don’t know what you really learned from this, but I hope it helped a little bit! I’m not sure what school is like in the UK so I don’t know if you do some of the same things. If you would like to know anything I missed, please tell me.

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Thank you for this, pretty much answered my questions. :smile:

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6 periods a day :scream: they’re 9 in my school

Science
English
History
Math
Music/Art/Enrichment/Study skills {9 weeks each one}

You can choose two from these
Study Hall/FACS/FCSI/Sports/AG/Choir

If you have a sport you don’t have to do gym
Gym/Study Hour/Career Development
Lunch is included with this

This was in my middle school also in the Junior High school

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Dang, how long is each class? Mine are around 49 mins.

40 minutes each and 5 minutes between classes

Wow, life science and engineering? I’ve never heard of them!
Personally, I have:
English
Science
Math
Chinese
Individuals and Societies (Humanities)
Spanish
Drama
Design
Art
Music
I actually don’t really know how long my holiday breaks are though… :thinking:

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Wow! That’s same for me!

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We also have 5 mins to get to out other classes, though I don’t think anyone isn’t late. My school has four floors and navigating the stairs is a struggle.

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Why is navigating the stairs difficult if there are four floors? (Sorry if it came across as rude, I’m just curious :thinking:)

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I’ve never heard of Individuals and Societies, whats that about? As for the stairs, there are many stairways and they are all small so you end up getting pushed by a bunch of people. :sweat_smile:

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The school system varies from state to state, I’ve lived in four different states and each one is different!

In one I had 6 classes, I think that’s standard. In another I had 4 and the first on I had 11 classes. Breaks are very different for example in California you get two-ish months for summer and in Minnesota you get three-four months. But then Christmas breaks, spring break, Easter and other holiday breaks are different too. So it really depends on where in the US.

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Oh, I see!
Individuals and Societies is humanities- so it’s history, geography, and business-ish (mini)
Our school has 12 floors and 3 elevators, but teachers use all of them. We have two main stairwells and one sub coming from the fourth to third floor and another from the fourth to fifth floor- which connects to the one used in fire drills, which is from the fifth to bottom of the school (outside). It is really crowded though, but I can hardly relate school cliche’s I read into real life. It happens sometimes, but it’s not there, really.

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My school (high school) we had three classes a day. Gah, 100 minutes long .-.
(a total of 6 classes… all year… also two semesters…)
My school was also ‘flat’ and so there weren’t hallways between classes. For me class starts at 8am (this will be changing soon with a new law that requires schools to start later… this might be just in Cali…)

High School has four grades -
“Freshmen” (freshmeat lol) - 14-15 years old
“Sophomores” 15-16 years old (‘sweet 16’ gifts are sometimes a car here because you can get your permit at 15 and 1/3)
“Juniors” 16-17 years old
“Seniors” 17-18 years old


Also with schools, you go to the school based on where you live. If you want to go to a school ‘out of district’ you’d have to call the district.
My school had three ‘long’ breaks and the occasional Monday / Friday off because of other Holidays. “Thanksgiving” Break which would be the week of Thanksgiving. “Winter” - just before Christmas and extends till early January. Then ‘Spring / Easter’ break which would be some week in April / March… like… it’s not always on Easter, I don’t know how they pick the week. Then Summer, which isn’t considered a break-break because when you come back you are in a new grade.

Youtube will help

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