Famous schools and universities
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University or simply Oxford) is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. While having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the world's second-oldest surviving university
It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two "ancient universities" are frequently jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".
The University is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges and a full range of academic departments which are organised into four Divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions as part of the University, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it does not have a main campus; instead, all the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the metropolitan centre.
Most undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the self-governing colleges and halls, supported by classes, lectures and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments. Oxford is the home of several notable scholarships, including the Clarendon Scholarship which was launched in 2001and the Rhodes Scholarship which has brought graduate students to read at the university for more than a century. Oxford operates the largest university press in the world[13]and the largest academic library system in the United Kingdom.
Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 27 Nobel laureates (58 total affiliations), 26 British Prime Ministers (most recently David Cameron) and many foreign heads of state.
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge (informally known as "Cambridge University" or simply "Cambridge"; abbreviated as"Cantab" in post-nominals is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university.
It grew out of an association formed by scholars leaving the University of Oxford after a dispute with townsfolk the two "ancient universities" have many common features and are often jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".
Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges and over 100 academic departments organised into six Schools. The university occupies buildings throughout the town, many of which are of historical importance. The colleges are self-governing institutions founded as integral parts of the university. In the year ended 31 July 2014, the university had a total income of £1.51 billion, of which £371 million was from research grants and contracts. The central university and colleges have a combined endowment of around £4.9 billion, the largest of any university outside the United States. Cambridge is a member of many associations, and forms part of the "golden triangle" of English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners, an academic health science centre. The university is closely linked with the development of the high-tech business clusterknown as "Silicon Fen".
Students' learning involves lectures and laboratory sessions organised by departments, and supervisions provided by the colleges. The university operates eight arts, cultural, and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum and a botanic garden. Cambridge's libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, 8 million of which are in Cambridge University Library which is a legal deposit library. Cambridge University Press, a department of the university, is the world's oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world. Cambridge is regularly placed among the world's best universities in different university rankings. Beside academic studies, student life is centred on the colleges and numerous pan-university artistic activities, sports clubs and societies.
Cambridge has many notable alumni, including several eminent mathematicians, scientists, politicians, and 90 Nobel laureates who have been affiliated with it. Throughout its history, the university has featured in literature and artistic works by numerous authors including Geoffrey Chaucer, E. M. Forster and C. P. Snow.
Eton College
Eton College, often informally referred to simply as Eton, is an English single-sex boys' independent boarding school located inEton, Berkshire, near Windsor. It educates over 1,300 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor", making it the 18th oldest HMC school.
Eton is one of nine English independent schools, commonly referred to as "public schools", regulated by the Public Schools Act of 1868. Following the public school tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means all pupils live at the school, and it is one of four such remaining single-sex boys' public schools in the United Kingdom (the others being Harrow, Radley, and Winchester) to continue this practice. Eton has educated nineteen British Prime Ministers and generations of the aristocracy and has been referred to as the chief nurse of England's statesmen. Charging up to £11,478 per term (there are three terms per academic year) in 2014/15, Eton is the 6th most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK.
Prince William at Eaton (aged 18)
Education
In each country there are five stages of education: early years, primary, secondary, further education (FE) and higher education (HE). The law states that full time education is compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 (4 in Northern Ireland) and 16, the compulsory school age (CSA). In England, compulsory education or training has been extended to 18 for those born after 1 September 1997. This full-time education does not need to be at a school and a growing number of parents choose to home educate.
There are different types of schools in Britain.
Independent schools do not receive funds from the government or local authorities. They charge school fees. The schools select pupils according to ability by using an entrance exam. Schools are often single-sex boys schools or girls schools, although many boys schools accept girls in the sixth form (between the ages of 16 and 18).
A preparatory school (usually called a prep school) is a school to prepare pupils to go to a public school. Boys often enter such schools aged about 8 and girls aged about 11. The entrance exams used by most public schools are known as Common Entrance exams and are taken at the age of 13.
A public school is an independent secondary school which is a charity (not profit-making) and which belongs to one of the public school associations, the largest of which are the Headmasters' Conference(HMC) and the Girls' School Association (GSA). Among the most famous public schools are Eton, Harrow and Winchester. The most famous universities of England are for sure Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford was stared in the 12th century and grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where they established what became the University of Cambridge.The two "ancient universities" are frequently jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".
The University of Winchester is a public new university based in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It received the power to award its own Research Degrees in August 2008. Winchester is a historic cathedral city and the ancient capital of Wessex and the Kingdom of England.
The origins of the University of Winchester date back to 1840 when the Winchester Diocesan Training School was founded as a Church of England foundation for the training of elementary schoolmasters. The school was initially quite small, located in a house at 27 St Swithun Street, Winchester. In 1847 the school moved to Wolvesey, the Bishop’s Palace, where it became Winchester Training College. Following an outbreak of cholera at Wolvesey a new building (now the main building on the university's King Alfred Campus) was established for the college in 1862, on land granted by the cathedral at West Hill, Winchester. The college was renamed King Alfred's College in 1928.
King Alfred's College trained thousands of teachers, at first men only, and then women too from 1960 onwards. Following changes in UK government policy towards further and higher education in the early 1970s, the College looked for partners to merge with and also sought to diversify its provision. Its educational partner, the University of Southampton, was lukewarm about offering other degrees, and the College sought approval for its own BEd and then BA degrees from the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). Interdisciplinary degrees in History and English with Drama, Archaeology and American Studies were the first offered. Further programmes followed in the 1980s, but it was only when the college expanded in the early 1990s following CNAA approval for a modular degree programme that a large number of new fields of study grew at undergraduate level. At the same time Masters programmes were approved alongside an MEd programme. With the CNAA's demise in 1992, the College found itself once again accredited by the University of Southampton, resuming a partnership broken off 18 years earlier.
Harrow School, commonly referred to as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243, but the Harrow School of today was formally founded in 1572 by John Lyon under a Royal Charter ofElizabeth I. Harrow is one of the original nine public schools that were regulated by the Public Schools Act 1868.
The School has an enrollment of 814 boys spread across twelve boarding houses, all of whom board full-time. It remains one of the four all-boys, full-boarding schools in Britain, the others being Eton College, Radley College, and Winchester College. Harrow's uniform includes straw hats, morning suits, top hats and canes. Its long line of famous alumni includes eight former British/Indian Prime Ministers (including Churchill, Baldwin, Peel, andPalmerston), numerous foreign statesmen, former and current members of both houses of the U.K. Parliament, two Kings and several other members of various royal families, 20 Victoria Cross and one George Cross holders, and a great many notable figures in both the Arts and the Sciences. The Good Schools Guide published in 2014 said "Parents looking for a top notch, blue chip, full boarding, all boys' school will be hard-pressed to beat Harrow. This is a school on top of its game"
Uniform
Boys at Harrow have two uniforms.
Everyday dress, worn to most lessons, consists of a white shirt, black silk tie, light grey trousers, black shoes, an optional blue jumper (sweater), a dark blue woollen uniform jacket known as a "bluer", the option of the School blue and white scarf and dark blue woollen overcoat similar to the bluer on cold days and, notably, the Harrow Hat, often erroneously called a boater, made of varnished straw with a dark blue band. Variations include boys who are monitors who are allowed to wear a jumper of their choice, and members of certain societies who may earn the right to replace the standard school tie with one of a variety of scarves, cravats, neck and bow ties.
An alternative uniform, Sunday dress, worn every Sunday and for more formal engagements, consists of something similar to morning dress; a black tailcoat, which is cut similarly to an evening coat, but with a distinctly higher-cut skirt and no facing on the lapels, dark grey pinstriped trousers, a black waistcoat, a black tie, braces and a white shirt. Variations include a grey waistcoat for those who contribute greatly to School sport, maroon waistcoats for members of "The Guild", which is the school's arts society, a black top hat and cane for monitors, and a hat with black speckles for boys in the 1st XI Cricket.
The Head of School has the distinction of wearing full white tie during the Contio Latina, a speech delivered annually by the Head Boy entirely in Latin.
Another notable feature of the uniform at Harrow is that there is a separate set of sports uniform of the House colours. These include football shirts, socks, and a rugby shirt. This distinguishes members of different Houses, and shows the House spirit within Harrow.
The Harrow uniform achieved notoriety in the mid 20th century when a 1937 photograph of two Harrovians in Sunday Dress being watched by three working class boys was taken outside Lord's Cricket Ground. The photograph was placed on the front cover of the News Chronicle (now absorbed into the Daily Mail) the next morning under the tagline "Every picture tells a story". The picture was soon reproduced in other national publications and became, and remains, one of the most popular symbols of the class divide in the United Kingdom.
Practices
Every new boy who enters the School is given a two-week period of time called "grace" when he is not fully subject to all School rules and is shown the ropes by an assigned boy in the year above called a "Shepherd". Soon after this period of time ends the boy sits the "new boys' test" which tests general knowledge of the School's traditions. Some time later all new boys also sing a solo in front of their House at a House Songs, officially ending their time as a new boy.
All boys are required to wear their hats when going to or from lessons and to "cap" all teachers (also known as "beaks") who pass them on any public road and chapel terrace, which is done by the boy raising his forefinger to the brim of his hat. Those who do not follow these rules are punished.
Songs
Songs have been an important part of Harrow life ever since John Farmer, a former head of music, wrote the first song in 1864. The School considers them to be a unifying force as they are sung by the boys in their Houses every term. Songs are sung by the whole School to audiences of parents, former pupils of the School, and guests of honour that have, in the past, included members of the royal family and representatives from previous governments. The song Forty Years On has become known as the School Song, although in reality it is one of many compositions. It features a verse about Winston Churchill, and was heard in the film Young Winston.
Sport
Harrow has been instrumental in the development of a number of sports:
The sport squash (originally called 'Squasher') was invented in Harrow out of the older game rackets around 1830 before the game spread to other schools, eventually becoming an international sport.
In the development of Association Football, Harrow was one of seven schools that met to develop the 1863 Cambridge Rules, which would influence The Football Association's first set of rules, the 1863 Laws of the game.
An annual cricket match has taken place between Harrow and Eton College at Lord's Cricket Ground since 1805. It is considered to be the longest-running cricket fixture in the world and is the oldest fixture at Lord's (see: Eton v Harrow). Eton won the match in 2013, and Harrow in 2014.
Harrow has its own unique style of football called Harrow Football. The object of the game is to score a "base", which is achieved by kicking the ball between a pair of vertical posts, located at each end of the ground, similar to rugby posts but without a cross-bar. This may be done either from open play or from 'yards'[clarification needed] and the kick may be of any height. An important feature is the offside rule whereby a player must be behind the ball before he can play it. Handling is allowed from a kick on the volley: the ball may be caught and a call of "yards" allows the catcher a space of three running yards unmolested and a free kick out of the hands.
The Harrowian
The Harrovian is the School newspaper that is published weekly during term time. Its articles are written anonymously and the School stresses that the opinions expressed in the newspaper do not reflect School policy. The newspaper is published as both an organ of record and a forum for comment, debate and the expression of individual opinions in the School. The Harrovian is also published online by the Harrow Association. The Headmaster, however reserves the right to remove any article from the Harrovian prior to publication if he sees fit.
Video about education in GB