Grades K-8 in one school, which was called elementary. The 7th and 8th grade classes were in a newer wing, but that wasn’t so much about separation as about status. We all still used the same playground, lunchroom, bathrooms, etc.
Then a 4-year high school.
I like this approach of having a wide range of ages together in the same school. It gives the younger students some idea of how they will be expected to behave when they’re older (you know, smoke, swear, cut class, and so on).
Roddy
In Georgia it was (and still is):
K-5 Elementary
6-8 Middle
9-12 High
Mine was:
Elementary: K-5
Middle: 6-8
High: 9-12.
Nowadays they do it a little differently:
Elementary = K-4
Intermediate = 5 and 6
Middle: 7-8
High: 9-12.
Not sure why, but that’s how they roll these days.
I experienced both of these approaches, starting 7th grade at a junior high (grades 7-9) which then became a middle school (grades 6-8) for my 8th-grade year. I was happy to escape with only 2 years of it instead of 3. This was in Ohio, '79-'81.
Grade: 1-6
Junior High: 7-9
High: 10-12
We had unusual situation because of the end of segregation. There wasn’t room for all the students in the main high school building. The old black high school became the 10th grade. I had a 10th grade world history class at the main high school from 2 to 3. Had to ride a school shuttle bus for it and then return back to the 10th grade building. Crazy situation. They finally built a bigger high school a few years ago.
When I went to school (New York, class of 1979) it was:
Elementary: Kindergarten through 6th grade
Junior High: 7th and 8th grade
High School: 9th through 12th grade
Arlington VA. 1950-1962
Elementary: K-6
Junior High: 7-9
High: 10-12
Where I grew up (metro NY), “junior high” was for public schools, “middle school” for private schools. Either was typically 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, but sometimes just 7th and 8th grades; occasionally, 5th grade was added, and maybe in a very few instances 9th grade.
Never heard of “intermediate” in any school, anywhere – only as an age category at sleep-away camps, and also as a kind of level in Dungeons and Dragons, IIRC.
Grade 13? A typo?
We had:
Grade or elementary: K-6
Junior High: 7-8
High school: 9-12
Probably Canada.
I went to K-8 and then 9-12, as did my husband.
My daughter went to a neighborhood K-4, town 5-6, town 7-8 junior high, and then 9-12.
When she was in 8th grade the town changed to centers. There is a K center, 1-3 center, a5-6 center, then 7-8 middle, then 9-12 high.
The neighborhood school concept was changed because some element ariens were considered better than others and parents would try to get their kids in those, which resulting in higher class sizes as well as upset parents.
Nothing like busing a little kid 45 minutes to the K center when there is a school building across the street that used to have a kindergarten class.
Way back when, in the early- to mid-70s, my schools were: elementary 1-6 (I don’t recall if they had public universal kindergarten then); junior high 7-9; and high school 10-12. The year after I graduated, they moved sixth grade and ninth grade up and turned junior high into middle school.
There doesn’t seem to be a good way to deal with the awkward, horrible ages from eleven through fifteen or so. Ninth graders seem too young to be in among the sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but they’re too old to be with sixth- and seventh-graders. If it were practical, I’d say it would be best to group the first- through third-graders, the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, and eighth and ninth. Then the high school could run tenth through twelfth. Maybe that would cut down on the bullying and nastiness in school. Then again, maybe nothing would.
Australia (ACT 1977 - 89):
K-6: Primary (Two catholic schools. K-3 at a mixed school, Yr 4-6 boys only school)
7 - 12: Secondary (boys only catholic school).
The public school system can be bit different:
K-6: Primary
7 - 10: Secondary
11 -12: College
Depends on how the campus is set up.
Australia (Victoria to be precise).
Kindergarten (age 4) (Not compulsory but recommended)
****Primary school ****(Prep (age 5) through to Grade Six (app 12 yrs old)
****High School ****(Year 7 through to Year 12 (app 17 yrs old)
Some private schools and regional schools incorporate k-12 on the same or adjacent campus, but mostly they are separate entities.
On completion of Year 12, kids go off to university or what are called TAFE colleges, or leave the education system completely and head into the workforce.
I’m a Boomer with tons a family still where I grew up, so it’s been interesting to see the changes. I went to elementary school (1-6), junior high (7-9), then senior high (10-12). Our junior high was brand new when I started, and we moved to a new high school in my sophomore year, so demand was up. Before then, we’d had grammar school (1-8) and high school (9-12).
By the time my nephew finished, they’d shuffled things around so that it was grade school (1-5), middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12). Demand is back to pre-Boomer levels and there have been lots of closings, but it’s felt they can’t go back to the grammar/high model because having 8th graders and 1st graders in the same school would be problematic nowadays.
My aunts and uncles who went during that model agree, with an interesting perspective. When they went to school, there were 10 of them spread throughout the grades - the younger ones couldn’t be bullied because come recess or after school, the older siblings would be exacting revenge as soon as the younger one pointed you out. Similarly, my three sibs and I are one year apart so everyone else had an older sibling as enforcer - me. “Hey! That’s my little brother/sister.” was the standard admonishment. Remember the impact simply being a grade or two older had? For even more authority, I had a badge (crossing guard :)).
Smaller families these days means fewer, if any, siblings to intervene when bullying occurs, so they feel the lack of contemporaries in the family to go to means bullying goes on longer and gets much worse than it used to. I know my siblings had no problem coming to get me if they were being picked on, but we were all reluctant to involve adults.
My school was a K-8.
In New Zealand, in the 70s and 80s, it generally went like this:
Playcentre or Kindergarten (Kindy): Age 3-4
Primary School - Junior = Primer 1, 2, 3, 4: Age 5-6
Primary School - Senior = Standard 1, 2, 3, 4: Age 7-10
Intermediate - Form 1, 2: Age 11-12
High School - Form 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: Age 13-17
I went to a country school, so Intermediate and High School were combined, and somewhere in the midst of my run various different changes in policy renamed a few things midstream.
Now NZ uses the same system as Australia, and I think the UK has changed as well, which follows a similar numbering as the US, so there’s something closer to a worldwide standard. So I’ve managed to glean, at least; I may very well be wrong.
In my area (northern NJ, close enough to NYC to be included in the “Metropolitan NY” designation), there was no middle or intermediate in the public school system. We had elementary (or grammar, or grade) school for K-8 and high school for 9-12 (though usually referred to as freshman, sophomore, junior, senior at that level).
Interestingly, in my grammar school, classes were held with a single teacher for all subjects through grade 5, then with multiple teachers (usually 4 who taught more than one subject each) for grades 6-8. So it sounds like we had sort of a hybrid system within the same building for grammar/middle school (though I was unfamiliar enough with the concept of “middle school” that references to it at the time confused me).
Moved from GA to NM in midstream.
GA: “Junior High School”, 7-8 only, 9th was in High School.
NM: “Junior High School”, 7-9
(circa 1971-75)
Small town in west central Ohio, 50s to early 60s:
No kindergarten
1 through 6 – elementary or grade school; same teacher and same classroom all day
7 and 8 – junior high school; IIRC, we stayed in the same room but teachers rotated
9 through 12 – high school; teachers stayed put and students changed rooms when the bells rang