Japanese Schools

[Noseybonk]

Could anyone please tell me a couple of things about Japanese schools.
What are the compulsory ages for going to school?
What ages correspond to the grades, ie: grade one is it 6, 7 or 8?
How are the schools split, are they primary, middle and secondary or something similar?

I watch some anime and films that feature school kids, but I get confused about grades and ages because it is slightly different from how we do it in the UK, even with the starting ages. In the UK compulsory school age is 4/5 (depending on when your birthday is) to 16

[nice gaijin]

ages 3-5 幼稚園 youchien kindergarten or 保育園 hoikuen nursery school are compulsory I believe. The grades in youchien are 年少 nenshou、年中 nenchuu、and 年長 nenchou.

After 幼稚園 is 小学校 shougakkou, elementary school, grades 1-6, ages 6-12.

After 小学校 is 中学校, chuugakkou, grades 7-9, ages 12-15. Unlike American schools, where there are only two years of junior high, there are three years in Japanese junior high. This is the end of Japanese compulsory education.

高校 koukou is high school. It is not required, but most students move on to high school. The structure is the same as Junior high, with three years.

After that is obviously 大学 daigaku (college), and 大学院 graduate school. A search for "Education in Japan" should bring up some detailed results.

[gaijin_girl]

[QUOTE=nice gaijin]Unlike American schools, where there are only two years of junior high, there are three years in Japanese junior high.[QUOTE]


In American junior high it's grades 6-8, so that's three years.

[Mike Cash]

Originally Posted by nice gaijin

ages 3-5 幼稚園 youchien kindergarten or 保育園 hoikuen nursery school are compulsory I believe.

Nope. Not compulsory.

http://tinyurl.com/z4kj6

[nice gaijin]

Ahh I should have checked up on that, I've been told that youchien was compulsory by a native, and took their word for it.

Originally Posted by gaijin_girl

In American junior high it's grades 6-8, so that's three years.

Not sure what school you went to, but every junior high school in every district I've ever visted (mainly in CA) are only grades 7 and 8. Elementary school is 1-6.

[Mike Cash]

I think in the U.S. it can vary by state or even by school district within a state.

In my case, elementary school was 1-6. Junior high was 7-9, and high school was 10-12. Technically the 9th graders were actually high school freshmen and their course work counted toward credits required for high school graduation, but they attended school in the same building with the 7th and 8th grade students.

[Mike Cash]

Originally Posted by nice gaijin

Ahh I should have checked up on that, I've been told that youchien was compulsory by a native, and took their word for it.

Not to chastise you in any way, but rather to take this opportunity to make a very important point:

"A Japanese friend/spouse/etc. told me...." is a very poor thing to base anything on. You'd be amazed the things they don't know about their own country. And since that makes them akin to every other poor schlub on the planet, we should find this comforting, rather than troubling.

[nice gaijin]

yes I have certainly learned that they are a great source of mistakes and misinformations about their own country. Some things I've heard have been appalling in how incorrect they are. I figured that it would be a safe bet to ask someone about the school system they went through, but this thread has shown that it's not even a uniform system in my own homeland.

[nurizeko]

I find its ussually me that has to educate THEM about Japan sometimes, not everyday things but Japans history and what-not.

[Noseybonk]

Thank you for letting me know