Secondary school is an educational institution where the second stage of the three schooling periods, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age takes place. It follows elementary or primary education, and is sometimes followed by university (tertiary) education. The term high school is used particularly in North America and North Western England though the two types of school are far from synonymous.
There are very many different types of secondary school, and the language used varies around the world. Children usually go to secondary school between the ages of 11 and 16 years, and end between the ages of 16 and 18 years, although there is considerable variation from country to country.
The following descriptions and definitions pertain to state-funded education unless otherwise stated.
Read more about Secondary School: Nomenclature
Famous quotes containing the words secondary and/or school:
“Cloud-clown, blue painter, sun as horn,
Hill-scholar, man that never is,
The bad-bespoken lacker,
Ancestor of Narcissus, prince
Of the secondary men. There are no rocks
And stones, only this imager.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day—
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788–1879)