Question for Americans

[doyle]

School-related fic questions:

How old are third-grade kids? Would kids that young get homework?
Here children aged 4-11 go to primary school. Am I right in thinking it's called an elementary school there?
Are there such things as classroom assistants? (Non-teachers who help with the kids)

Comments

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

How old are third-grade kids?

8-9

Would kids that young get homework?

Yup. Little Tree had about 30 minutes to an hour of homework.

Here children aged 4-11 go to primary school. Am I right in thinking it's called an elementary school there?

Yes, but it is also called 'primary school', as well.

Are there such things as classroom assistants? (Non-teachers who help with the kids)

In some places and some schools.

[wickedprincess3.livejournal.com]

3 grade would be between ages 8-9
Kids get homework as early as Kindergarten here (or at lease *I* did.)
Elementary is typically go from K-4/5 grade (well mine was K-6 and then high school was 7-12) anyway the system around here is
Elementary K-4/5
Jr High/Middle school 5/6-8
High school 9-12
A lot of schools do have assistants (called TA teacher assistant) for their classrooms. Though as the students get older it is less likely.
Evette-who has spent too much time on the admistrative side of the U.S public school system.

[poisoninjest.livejournal.com]

1) 8. And yes.
2) Yes. More like 5-10, though, with 11-13 being middle school and 14-17 being high school (ages given are ages at beginning of school year).
3) From what I recall, mostly just for younger grades, like kindergarten (age 5).

[minim_calibre]

USian grade system:

Ages 5/6 -- Kindergarten

Ages 6/7 -- Grade One (commonly known in USian as 1st grade)

Ages 7/8 -- 2nd grade

Ages 8/9 -- 3rd grade

Ages 9/10 -- 4th grade

Ages 10/11 -- 5th grade

Ages 11/12 -- 6th grade

//end of elementary school. (sometimes called primary school, but not often.)//

Ages 12/13 -- 7th

Ages 13/14 -- 8th

//Note: in some parts of the US, this block is known as "middle school". I am including Grade 9 in its own block for reasons to be explained.//

Ages 14/15 -- 9th. This one is sticky. In some places, 7/8/9 form one unit known as Jr. High. It seems Sunnydale is one of those places, because it had a three year term, based on information in Lessons. Where I grew up, grade 9 was the first year of high school. )

//end confusion//

Ages 15/16 -- 10th
Ages 16/17 -- 11th
Ages 17/18 -- 12th or "senior" year.

[mahaliem.livejournal.com]

It looks like everyone else already answered your questions.

I believe that classroom assistants depends on the district and the classroom. The aides at the school my children attended were mostly in first and second grade, though. However, parents were encouraged to come in and help once a week (I've even helped in 8th grade Algebra classes, to my daughter's embarrassment).

[octopedingenue]

You've already gotten several replies to this, but what the heck... I was eight in third grade and I was one of the youngest, so eight or nine years old would be it. We got homework all the time, usually worksheets of some sort and sometimes a reading assignment or special project (make a map of the US out of salt dough on cardboard, that sort of thing). I know it can be called primary school, but I've always heard it called elementary school. There are many different kinds of teaching assistants of varying quality. Most education majors have to do some student-teaching by helping out in a working teacher's classroom, I think. And at my high school there was a program called TEP in which juniors and seniors could work as a teacher's aide in an elementary school or the junior high for one class period every day; it was supposed to be for future edcation majors to get experience, but a lot of slackers and football players took it to get a free period every day to goof off making Xerox copies for the teachers and to have a gaggle of adoring little kids giving them drawings and fanmail. :D

[thefakeheadline.livejournal.com]

Hey, Doyle - unrelated comment. *grin* I saw, in replying to Twi's latest message, that you'd also volunteered to run the communities during her hiatus. Now it looks like she's deleted her journal. :/ Do you still want to do both, or would you like to split 'em up?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Jeez, really? That's terrible :(

I'm happy to split the communities, or co-mod.

[thefakeheadline.livejournal.com]

I know. :/ I hope she undeletes and updates soon, or I'll have to spam her inbox...

Co-modding sounds good. How about whoever posts a challenge first gets to pick which community to send it to, and then (if need be) next week we'll switch?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

That sounds good. And I hope Twi undeletes soon, too.