I’ll know better next time. 
Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson has a good chapter on this.
Ah! Perhaps you can help me get the British school systems straight?
In the US:
Grammar school and elementary school are essentially the same thing, although the former term seems to be less commonly heard these days. This is a school with students from approximately age 5 (kindergarten) to sixth grade, or about age 12. Some elementary schools go up to eighth grade (about age 14). Where elementary schools do NOT go to eighth grade, there are junior high schools, or middle schools, generally grades 7 and 8 (occasionally grade 9, sometimes starting in grade 6). High school is usually grades 9-12, a/k/a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. Additionally, kindergarten through 3rd grade are often referred to as the primary grades, 4th-6th grade as intermediate grades. And the kids get “grades” on their report cards, as opposed to “marks.”
Also in the US, all universities are colleges, but not all colleges are universities. We have community colleges, some of which used to be known as junior colleges. You can generally earn your associates’ degree at such a school, whereas you’d get your bachelors’ degree or masters’ degree from a university (there are exceptions - many community colleges now do offer advanced degree programs.) Also, community colleges tend to be, well, in the community - local. A university is a four-year college, and a large number of the students live on or near the campus, away from home.
Finally, a public school in the US is open to the public. No tuition; it’s a state education, and it’s generally within walking distance to students’ homes. A private school is one with tuition, and often there are qualifying exams for enrollment (you can’t just pay for a spot). Parochial schools are religious schools, usually connected to a church or temple, and usually requiring tuition payments as well. (When I say “religious schools” I do not mean that they teach nothing BUT religion, only that they are run by religious organizations.) There are also charter schools and special schools and trade schools, but we won’t get into THAT.
Now - if someone would be so kind as to 'splain why, in England, a public school is private?
OK, the basic system:
Education is compulsory ages 5-16, although most continue to 18. In most places, there’s primary schools (5-11) and secondary (aka high) schools (11-16 or 18). A few regions have a three-school system, and some have sixth-form colleges (a now-anachronistic term which is still used) which take the 16-18 age range.
seosamh is right, that a few areas still retain the Grammar system, where children are divided between different schools at aged 11 according to ability.
Why are private schools called ‘public schools’? It goes back to long before any state education existed, and they were open to the public (either fee-paying or funded by charitable donations), as opposed to the private schooling the upper classes would provide for their own offspring. (And just to confuse things further, many private schools have ‘grammar’ in their name.)
University != College. Basically, a college is anything that’s not a school and not a university. They can be the sixth-form colleges I mentioned, they can be places that provide other tuition and qualifications (both academic and vocational), and some can offer degrees accredited by universities. And all universities are theoretically equal, they all offer under- and postgraduate education and all conduct research.
Continuing my education on education…
So if I have this right, you don’t have grade levels (i.e third grade, sixth grade), but “forms”?
High school juniors (11th graders) here take standardized tests for college placement qualification, called SATs (there are also ACTs, but I THINK those are for younger high school students and I’m not entirely certain what they are meant to determine.) I’ve heard Brits refer to “A-levels” and “O-levels.” Similar?
Do British students also have finals (semester-end exams)?
They’re referred to as ‘years’: ‘Year 3’ = ages 7-8. ‘Forms’ refers to class groups.
There’s GCSEs sat at the end of year 11 (ie aged 16) - kids typically sit them in something like 10 subjects, each one being a separate qualification, each awarded a letter grade. (These replaced O-Levels about twenty years ago.) A-Levels are studied for after this, ages 16-18, and are the major benchmark for university applications. Most will sit these in 3 or 4 subjects, so there’s necessarily specialisation at this stage eg. for students planning on applying to medical school.
That’s the basics, anyway - there’s all sorts of tweaks been made over the years.
Oh, I should point out that those qualifications apply to England & Wales only - the Scottish education system is completely separate.
In reference to the number of GCSEs taken, my two local secondary schools take 8, the grammar school I go to take 13, the girl’s grammar school just down the road take 11 or 12 I believe, but I’m not entirely sure. (Random aside- Usram this is all going on in your town.)
You get an A for your previous paragraph, but this one could be a bit misleading. Not all “non-university” colleges are two-year colleges; there are plenty of (four-year) small liberal arts colleges that award bachelor’s degrees. I’m sure someone else could explain the technical difference between a “college” and a “university” here, but I do know that a university may be made up of colleges (“The College of _____”).
And Americans talk about “going to college” or being “in college” whether or not the institution they’re attending is, technically, a university.
The distinction you made between US public and private schools was pretty much right on, but it gets a little different at the college/university level. Public institutions of higher learning (including state universities and community colleges) are state-sponsored (“state” as in one of the 50), and you generally do have to pay tuition to attend, but not as much as at a private college, at least if you’re a resident of that state. Private colleges/universities are funded primarily by some combination of tuition, alumni donations, donations from rich benefactors, and the sposorship of religious organizations/denominations, though they might also be eligible for government grants for something or other.
The SAT and the ACT are the same kind of thing, developed by competing companies. Some colleges specifically want one or the other; some will take either. Around these parts, in recent years, high school juniors or seniors are all rountinely given the ACT in high school as a means of assessment, but before they started doing that a few years back, you had to arrange on your own to take the ACT and/or SAT and have them send your scores to the college(s) of your choice. There’s also a PSAT (essentially, pre-SAT) that slightly younger students can take, essentially to practice for the SAT but there are a few scholarship organizations that may use these scores.
Just to complicate the UK college issue , several universities , including Oxford , Cambridge and ( I think ) Durham use the collegiate system. This article explains better than I can :-
The Durham system isn’t a true collegiate one. However, there’s the University of London, which is a federal system where the various colleges (titled as such) essentially function in their own right. And I believe the Univeristy of Wales is similar.
I thought of another one but this is more of an IRISHISM.
Instead of; you must be crazy, it’s you must be daff.
One I just learned from the last Harry Potter book:
UK: “skive, skiving”
US: “ditch, ditching (or cutting) class (or school)”
Yes , you are correct about the University of Wales. My son attended UWIC (University of Wales Institute Cardiff) other branches of the same University are located in Bangor and Swansea.
Question/Query:
What does PipEmma and AckEmma mean? Is it something to do with high noon (the time, not the film)? It makes no sense to me.
And I thought that shagging was having sex. Have I completely misread Bridget Jones and Austin Powers all these years?
more slang:
having a slash=taking a piss
pissed=drunk/pissed=angry
in the club=knocked up, bun in the oven
stand a round=my round or buy a round.
And what is Barley water? It comes in cans, but I lacked the courage to try it…
Pip , Ack and Emma are part of the phonetic alphabet that was in use in the British forces around the time of WW1. This has been replaced by the Nato alphabet so you would now have Papa , Alpha and Echo. Pip Emma is PM and Ack Emma is AM ( i.e. after and before noon).
Wine gums! That was the other candy from Bridget Jones’s Diary I was trying to remember! It sounds like wine-flavored chewing gum, but it’s some kind of gummi-bear-type candy in unusual flavors.
How do you pronounce “Edinburgh”?
Edin-burgh
Edin-burrow
Edin-bruh
?
Thank you, Rayne Man ! Now it makes sense.
and it’s Edin-bruh, as far as I know.
Your second is closest: something like Edin-burruh; although come to think of it, I’ve also heard people say Edin-bruh.
The ACT is generally accepted mostly by universities in the midwest–you don’t see a lot of schools on the coasts requiring those scores (I think). The ACT and SAT are also a little different with regard to what they test; after taking each one several times, I always did better on the ACT than the SAT. The SAT has the reading test and the math test, whereas the ACT has reading, science, math, and English. The PSAT is used to determine National Merit Scholars, which is a big deal around here (don’t know about other parts of the country). There are SAT IIs that the more prestigious schools may require; these are specific to subjects, like math or chemistry, and you choose which SAT IIs you need to take. Having never taken one, I can’t say what they’re like exactly.
I’ve always pronounced it Edin-burruh, but like offers at Safeways, it’s subject to regional variation.