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This article relates to grade school. For the American educational institution in São Paulo, Brazil, see Graded School.
Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occurs during childhood. In most countries, it is compulsory for children to receive primary education (though in many jurisdictions it is permissible for parents to provide it). Primary education generally begins when children are four to seven years of age. The division between primary and secondary education is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about twelve years of age (adolescence); some educational systems have separate middle schools for that period. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia schools teaching primary education are referred to only as primary schools, while in Canada and the United States, they are more often referred to as elementary schools or grade schools. Canada and the United States also group together primary and secondary education under the header of "K-12" education (K is for kindergarten, 12 is for twelfth grade). Americans tend to call grades by the ordinal number and Canadians by the cardinal, i.e., 12th grade (American), grade 12 (Canadian). Grades are called "years" in England, used in the form "year 4". In many places the 8th year of education is called "1st Form" or "secondary first" and similar, which continues to the 12 year, which is "5th Form", with variance in naming the years beyond. There are many other variations in nomenclature of grades or years.
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General information
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Typically, primary education is provided in schools, where (in the absence of parental movement or other intervening factors) the child will stay, in steadily advancing classes, until they complete it and move on to secondary schooling. Children are usually placed in classes with one teacher who will be primarily responsible for their education and welfare for that year. This teacher may be assisted to varying degrees by specialist teachers in certain subject areas, often music or physical education. The continuity with a single teacher and the opportunity to build up a close relationship with the class is a notable feature of the primary education system. Over the past few decades, schools have been testing various arrangements which break from the one-teacher, one-class mould. Multi-age programs, where children in different years/grades (e.g. Reception/Kindergarten through to year three/second grade) share the same classroom and teachers, is one increasingly popular alternative to traditional elementary instruction. An alternative is that children might have a main class and go to another teacher's room for one subject, such as science, while the science teacher's main class will go to the other teacher's room for another subject, such as social studies. This could be called a two-teacher, two-class mould, or a rotation, similar to the concept of teams in middle school. Another method is to have the children have one set of classroom teachers in the first half of the year, and a different set of classroom teachers in the second half of the year.
The major goals of primary education are achieving basic literacy and numeracy amongst all their students, as well as establishing foundations in science, geography, history and other social sciences. The relative priority of various areas, and the methods used to teach them, are an area of considerable political debate.
Traditionally, various forms of corporal punishment have been an integral part of early education. Recently this practice has come under attack, and in many cases been outlawed, especially in Western countries.
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See also
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