Janet thinks that stopping dividing children at the age of 11 ______the old educ

School Education
Interviewer: Janet, as a teacher, can you give us some idea on how the English school system works?
Janet: Um, well, first of all most children start school at the age of five and they can’t leave school until the age of sixteen. Um ... they will go to primary school from the age of five until eleven ... um, and previously they used to take an eleven plus examination which would then determine whether they would go to a grammar school or alternatively a secondary school. But now we have a ... 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.
Interviewer: Do you think that’s a ... an improvement to the system?
Janet: Well,... um, theoretically... it’s supposed to be much better because it gives... it stops separating children at the age of eleven and gives them a better chance, and in fact what usually happens is that those children who wouldn’t ... er 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 the lower levels of the school.
Interviewer: Do you think that the present school system is an efficient way of educating children?
Janet: Um... well if you, if you accept that, you know, there have to be schools, it seems to work fairly efficiently. Of course one of our great problems in England is that we have very large classes and ... um, it would be very nice if we could reduce that by at least half instead of there being forty children in a class, there are only twenty., um and so that each child gets more individual attention so that their own particular needs just aren’t passed over.
Interviewer: Do you think the... subjects that er... children study today are adapted to present-day society?
Janet: It would be very good if... er, more children at school had the opportunity of learning about the society they live in... in economic terms and in social terms, so that they are much more aware of the problems that we face today. But I also think that education isn’t only something that has to be...  has to be relevant... um, I think education can be just a ... a gradual extension of oneself, and I don’t think it’s um ... important for subjects to be seen only in terms of how useful they are when you leave school... but how much you enjoy them and how much they mean to you.
Interviewer: What about games... er and drama and things like that?
Janet: Well, the students have about an hour and a half of games a week, and for about an hour a week they have a class called social studies, which um... provide them ... er with some basic information or knowledge about what life will be after they leave school... and they will do a drama in this class, They also study something about ecology, sociology et cetera ... It’s not an "O" level class, it’s just for ... er experience.
Interviewer: Janet, do you... really think that your students gain a lot from their education?
Janet: I think they gain a certain amount of necessary knowledge, yes, but I think it should be broader. I think more emphasis should be put on broadening their knowledge instead of studying towards passing an exam, or reading towards writing a paper.
Interviewer: Er... do you have any specific way in which you think... time at school could be improved?
Janet: Yes, I think there could be a... a lot more encouragement in doing things for their own sake, for getting the satisfaction out of them... um, rather than this "rat race" that everybody’s forced into... um... for what is achieved at the end. I think... a lot more should be done to encourage the students to get the value out of it themselves.