[originaltext]M: As a teacher, can you give us some idea on how the English sch

M: As a teacher, can you give us some idea on how the English school system works?
W: First of all, most children start school at the age of five and they can’t leave school until the age of sixteen. But now we have a new system where children aren’t divided off at the age of eleven, instead, they could take the exams at the age of sixteen.
M: (23) Do you think that’s an improvement to the system?
W: Well ,it’s supposed to be much better because it stops separating children at the age of eleven and gives them a better chance. (22)In fact, what usually happens is that those children who would have gone to a grammar school tend to be at the top end of the comprehensive system and those that would have gone to secondary modern school find themselves at lower levels of the school.
M: Do you think that the present school system is an efficient way of educating children?
W: (24) Of course one of our great problems in England is that we have very large classes and it would be very nice if we could reduce them by at least half.
M: Do you think the subjects that children study are adapted to present-day society?
W: (25) It would be very good if more children at school had the opportunity of learning about the society they live in economic terms and in social terms. So that they are much more aware of the problems that we face today.