A secondary school or high school is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both lower secondary education (ages 11 to 14) and upper secondary education (ages 14 to 18), i.e., both levels 2 and 3 of the ISCED scale, but these can also be provided in separate schools. There may be other variations in the provision: for example, children in Australia, Hong Kong, and Spain change from the primary to secondary systems a year later at the age of 12, with the ISCED's first year of lower secondary being the last year of primary provision.
Secondary schools follow on from primary schools and prepare for vocational or tertiary education. In high and middle income countries, attendance is usually compulsory for students at least until age 16. The organisations, buildings, and terminology are more or less unique in each country.[4][5]
In the ISCED 2014 education scale,[6] levels 2 and 3 correspond to secondary education which are as follows:
Lower secondary education
First stage of secondary education building on primary education, typically with a more subject-oriented curriculum. Students are generally around 11–16 years old.[6]
Upper secondary education
Second stage of secondary education and final stage of formal education for students typically aged 16–18, preparing for tertiary/adult education or providing skills relevant to employment, usually with an increased range of subject options and streams.[6]
Within the English-speaking world, there are three widely used systems to describe the age of the child. The first is the 'equivalent ages'; then countries that base their education systems on the 'English model' use one of two methods to identify the year group, while countries that base their systems on the 'American K–12 model' refer to their year groups as 'grades'. The Irish model is structured similarly to the English model, but differs significantly in terms of labels. This terminology extends into the research literature. Below is a comparison of some countries:
Schools exist within a strict legal framework where they may be answerable to their government through local authorities and their stakeholders. In England (but necessarily in other parts of the United Kingdom) there are six general types of state-funded schools running in parallel to the private sector. The state takes an interest in safeguarding issues in all schools. All state-funded schools in England are legally required to have a website where they must publish details of their governance, finance, curriculum intent and staff and pupil protection policies to comply with The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 and 2016. Ofsted monitors these.[13][14]
School building design does not happen in isolation. The building or school campus needs to accommodate:
Curriculum content
Teaching methods
Costs
Education within the political framework
Use of school building (also in the community setting)
Constraints imposed by the site
Design philosophy
Each country will have a different education system and priorities.[15]Schools need to accommodate students, staff, storage, mechanical and electrical systems, support staff, ancillary staff and administration. The number of rooms required can be determined from the predicted roll of the school and the area needed.
According to standards used in the United Kingdom, a general classroom for 30 students needs to be 55m2, or more generously 62m2. A general art room for 30 students needs to be 83m2, but 104m2 for 3D textile work. A drama studio or a specialist science laboratory for 30 needs to be 90m2. Examples are given on how this can be configured for a 1,200 place secondary (practical specialism).[16] and 1,850 place secondary school.[17]
The ideal size for a typical comprehensive high school is large enough to offer a variety of classes, but small enough that students develop a sense of community.[18][19] Research has suggested that academic achievement is best when there are about 150 to 250 students in each grade level, and that above a total school size of 2,000 for a secondary school, academic achievement and the sense of school community decline substantially.[18]
Arguments in favor of smaller schools include having a shared experience of school (e.g., everyone takes the same classes, because the school is too small to offer alternatives), higher average academic achievement, and lower inequality.[20]
Arguments in favor of larger schools tend to focus on economy of scale.[20] For example, a single basketball court could serve a school with 200 students just as well as a school with 500 students, so construction and maintenance costs, on a per-student basis, can be lower for larger schools. However, cost savings from larger schools have generally not materialized, as larger schools require more administrative support staff, and rural areas see the potential savings offset by increased transportation costs.[20]
Larger schools can also support more specialization, such as splitting students into advanced, average, and basic tracks, offering a greater variety of classes, or sponsoring a greater number of extra-curricular activities.[20] (Some of these benefits can also be achieved through smaller but specialized schools, such as a dedicated special school for students with disabilities or a magnet school for students with a particular subject-matter interest.)
In terms of structure, organization, and relationships, larger schools tend to be more hierarchical and bureaucratic, with fewer and weaker personal connections and more rigidly defined, unvarying roles for all staff.[20] Teachers find that large schools result in more information to process in the larger environment (e.g., announcements about 100 programs instead of just 10) and that as individuals they form fewer relationships with teachers outside of their primary subject area.[20] Smaller schools have less social isolation and more engagement.[20] These effects cannot be entirely overcome through implementation of a house system or "school within a school" programs.[20]
The building providing the education has to fulfill the needs of: students, teachers, non-teaching support staff, administrators and the community. It has to meet general government building guidelines, health requirements, minimal functional requirements for classrooms, toilets and showers, electricity and services, preparation and storage of textbooks and basic teaching aids.[21] An optimum secondary school will meet the minimum conditions and will have:
adequately-sized classrooms;
specialized teaching spaces;
a staff preparation room;
an administration block;
multipurpose classrooms;
a general purpose school hall;
laboratories for science, technology, mathematics and life sciences, as may be required;
adequate equipment;
a library or library stocks that are regularly renewed; and
Also, a secondary school may have a canteen, serving a set of foods to students, and storage where the equipment of a school is kept.
Government accountants having read the advice then publish minimum guidelines on schools. These enable environmental modelling and establishing building costs. Future design plans are audited to ensure that these standards are met but not exceeded. Government ministries continue to press for the 'minimum' space and cost standards to be reduced.
The UK government published this downwardly revised space formula in 2014. It said the floor area should be 1050 m2 (+ 350 m2 if there is a sixth form) + 6.3 m2/pupil place for 11- to 16-year-olds + 7 m2/pupil place for post-16s. The external finishes were to be downgraded to meet a build cost of £1113/m2.[22]
A secondary school locally may be called a high school (abbreviated as HS or H.S.), can also be called senior high school. In some countries there are two phases to secondary education (ISCED 2) and (ISCED 3), here the junior high school, intermediate school, lower secondary school, or middle school occurs between the primary school (ISCED 1) and high school.
Names for secondary schools by country
Argentina: secundaria or polimodal, escuela secundaria
Iceland: framhaldsskóli (menntaskóli, iðnskóli, fjölbrautaskóli) from 11-13 Grade. After elementary school (grades 1 through 10), students have the option of entering a framhaldsskóli (lit. continuation school), which will take at least three years.
India: secondary school or high school (grades 8–10), higher secondary school or senior secondary school or intermediate college or pre-university college (grades 11–12)
Indonesia: sekolah menengah atas (SMA) (lit. "upper middle school"), sekolah menengah pertama (SMP) (lit. "first middle school"), sekolah menengah kejuruan (SMK) (vocational school, lit. "middle vocational school")
Israel: Bet Sefer Tichon (בית ספר תיכון) (literally middle school, but in reality grades 9-12)
Italy: scuola secondaria di primo grado (three years) + scuola secondaria di secondo grado (five years): Liceo, Istituto Tecnico and Istituto professionale
Jamaica: High School (public school 7–13), colleges (grand-aided schools 7–13)
Japan: chūgakkō (中学校; literally middle school), kōtōgakkō (高等学校; literally high school), chūtōkyōikugakkō (中等教育学校; Secondary School) – In the pre-Meiji educational system, the equivalent was called "chūsei"
Portugal: 2º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (5th and 6th grades), 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (7th to 9th grades), and Ensino Secundário, Liceu (10th to 12th grades)
South Korea: 중고등학교 (中高等學校・Chung'godŭnghakkyo), 중등교육 (Chungdŭng'gyoyuk; literally middle education), comprising 중학교 (Chunghakkyo; the Lower secondary school, years 7–9, though referred to as "middle school grades 1–3") and 고등학교 (Kodŭnghakkyo; the Upper secondary school, years 10–12, though referred to as "high school grades 1–3")
Spain: educación secundaria, composed of two cycles: E.S.O. (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, compulsory secondary education, four years, 7th to 10th grade) and bachillerato (non-compulsory secondary education, to years, 11th and 12th grade); formerly (for those born until 31 December 1983), primary education comprised up to the 8th grade and the secondary education was composed of two non-compulsory cycles: B.U.P. (Bachillerato Unificado Polivalente, three years, 9th to 11th grade) and C.O.U. (Curso de Orientación Universitaria, one year, 12th grade)
Sri Lanka: junior secondary school, senior secondary school
United States: High school (North America) (usually grades 9–12 but sometimes 10–12, it is also called senior high school) is always considered secondary education; junior high school or intermediate school or middle school (6–8, 7–8, 6–9, 7–9, or other variations) are sometimes considered secondary education.
Uruguay: Liceo or Secundaria (three years of compulsory education: Ciclo Básico; and three years of specialization: Bachillerato Diversificado, into: Humanities (Law or Economics), Biology (Medicine or Agronomy), Science (Engineering or Architecture), and Art
Vietnam: Trung học cơ sở (abbreviated THCS, lit. "basic middle school", equivalent to junior high school in the U.S.); trung học phổ thông (abbr. THPT, lit. "general middle school", equivalent to senior high school in the U.S.)
"The British Education System". The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. Archived from the original on April 25, 2019. Retrieved January 28, 2022. Most pupils begin their secondary education at the age of 11 (Year 7), but in some HMC schools pupils join the school at 13+ (Year 9).
"Entry to Eton". Eton College. Archived from the original on December 14, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2022. ... Eton College, a boarding school for boys aged between 13 and 18.
"Admissions". Harrow School. Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved January 28, 2022. Each year, the School admits about 160 boys into Year 9, in the September following their 13th birthday...
Lee, Valerie E. (2000) "School Size and the Organization of Secondary Schools." In Handbook of the Sociology of Education. Springer Nature. p. 327–332.
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