The Advantages of a British Primary School
Education is essential in the development of a person. However education should expand further than just learning about basic school subjects but also about the idea of oneself and others as well. The American education system only focuses mainly on half of this concept which is teaching children basic school subjects like math or social studies. They only briefly discuss about other concepts like religious or culture diversity of the world and rarely have talks during school about mental health. While visiting the primary school in London, I noticed the school tried to focus on both concepts of education.
The first thing I noticed about how the kids learn in the school was that they all would learn about each other and their different cultures and religions. The school is filled with many diverse children so it is important that they all are able to understand each other and their origins. The kids would start learning about the different religions and cultures as early as around year 2 and consistently do through the rest of their time in the primary school. Having the kids learn about the different religions and cultures is significant because it exposes them early to the diverse world that we live in and helps them accept different groups of people.
I found it interesting the amount of Bangladesh people in the area surrounding the school but learning about how the end of the British imperial empire and colonization of other countries makes sense as to why the population of Bangladesh people increased. After World War Two, many immigrants from those countries once colonized by the British, came to London to help out with the labor shortages in the repairs of the city. The cause of the migration of immigrants to London would lead to many diverse communities forming over generations. Since there are many multi-ethic communities, the public schools, like the primary school we visited, would have many ethnic groups in the school. Since the schools have so many different groups of people, the importance of inclusion of different cultures is huge and the schools understand this so that is why I believe the students are constantly learning about the many cultures of the world.
What I found to be the most impressive at the primary school was how they handle the students’ mental health and behavior issues. In the American education system, schools care more about punishing the kids’ behavior rather than trying to figure out why the kids are behaving poorly. American schools manage the kids behaviors by having a card behavior system. I remember in my elementary school, our card system went from green—which is where we wanted to be—yellow was a warning and once we got to red, we had to fill out a form to take to our parents explaining why we went to red. Besides students labeled as ADHD or other mental illnesses, that was as far as the school would go disciplinary wise. The difference at the primary school was that they would go a little more in-depth in their disciplinary system by having three colored zones on the kids emotional state—blue, green, or red. At the end of each day, the kids would place their names to the zone that they felt corresponded to them the most. The blue zone included depressed, tired, etc., the green zone was the goal, and the red zone included emotions like angry, irritated, etc. The executive headteacher told us that when a kid would be in either the red or the blue zone, they would make sure to do whatever they could to get them in the green zone. For kids in the blue zone, there are counseling services for the kids to talk about what is making them feel so down and see what solutions could be made. When it comes to kids in the red zone, the school has an interesting approach to get the kids back to the green zone: take them outside to the chicken pen behind the school. The executive headteacher explained that the reason why they do this is because having the kids watch the chickens or clean out the pen helps calm down the child since it distracts them from whatever they were angry or irritated about. I find this approach very unique because no one would think that taking care of a chicken pen, of all things, would actually help calm down a child.
I believe that the American school system could learn a lot from Britain’s when it comes to the elementary/primary schools. What the British school system does better is having the kids educated on more than just basic subjects but also about culture and religious diversity at such an early age. The significance of having the kids learn about diversity early is that it shapes their world view to accept all kinds of groups of people completely different from their own. The British school system also has a better disciplinary system than America’s because they focus more on finding a solution to bad behavior rather than finding a punishment for it.
