Is it true that collège students (13-14 year-olds) specialise in subjects earlier than in British public secondary schools at the same age? Is there far more rigorous testing in a French collège than in equivalent grades in the UK?
As a terminological clarification: Are you using the term “public school” in the American sense (i.e., a government-run, tax-funded and hence tuition-free school) or the British sense (i.e., a privately-run, tuition-funded and usually rather selective school)? I would guess that makes a difference. Quite generally, the British education system is highly fragmented: First, you have the regional differences between the various countries of the UK, so it would probably make sense to narrow down the question to England. Then you have the public (in the British sense described above) versus state school (what Americans call public school) divide. But even among state schools there’s wide variation, partly as a result of countless education reforms which have taken place over the decades but which were never put into a complete and coherent overhaul of the entire system.
Thanks for the clarification Schnitte. Let me rephrase my question then;
I’m interested in knowing whether English state schools (government-run, tax-funded and hence tuition-free school) are less specialized and less rigorous in terms of testing than the French collège (middle school)
This might help as an overview of requirements in England and Wales up to age 16, to start with:
Thereafter, from 16-18, pupils follow a more intensive study of only a few subjects, which are usually more focussed on a specialised area:
(My personal experience is far in the past, in a very academically-focussed grammar school: I did ten subjects for the 16+ GCSE, followed by languages for my A-levels - I was examined on nothing else after the age of 16. There are those in government who keep meddling to try to get schooling back to those days, it sometimes seems!)
England has whole streams of specialized state schools (academies) so I wouldn’t say so.