IB program high school credits automatically convert to A-levels. Otherwise you have to go through agencies which convert US high school coursework into A-levels.
My UK private school coursework (through age 13) was converted - seemingly more or less at random - into certain Florida high school credit, so I got bumped to the 10th grade when I moved here.
Religious schools, if they are government funded, are still comprehensives (or academies)
Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that, ‘Public’ schools are private fee-paying schools where the headteacher is a member of the The Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. They are often, but not always, boarding schools. My school was public, but not boarding. Then there are private schools which are also fee-paying, but not termed public. They are often, but not always, day schools rather than boarding.
Don’t expect it to make any logical sense. It’s history, which is our reason for most things in the UK.
I went to comprehensive school that the previous year had been a grammar school. It certainly mixed up the class cultures. The intake of pupils was formerly from the well off western suburbs, sons of middle class managers and professionals. The new intake included the rough kids from the council estates in the working class east of the city.
I think the general idea was that this mixing was supposed to encourage social mobility, however, it did not quite work out like that. The classes were graded within each year and A and B were university material, C and D for the factories, trades and grade E was the sink for low expectations.
The teachers in state of some shock at then new system. Some simply did not have the skills to deal with boistrous lads and often resorted to corporal punishment. There was a huge turnover in the teaching staff.
Here is a clip from the movie Kes, set sometime in the 1960s in a working class coal mining town of Barnsley.
I remember headmasters like that, whose values were drawn from the strict discipline of the war years. The comprehensive system was intended to break up the social divisions built into the education system. It was a noble idea, but the execution was very patchy, taking place over several decades that saw many changes of government.
Tinkering around with education policy is one of those recurring political projects that will probably always be on the agenda. I lose track of the various initiatives that have been put in place over the past twenty years intended to introduce equal opportunity in education. Sadly it is often one step forward, one step back.
I don’t think one really ought to be surprised, or even disappointed, when major social change turns out to be a lengthy and difficult, or even a somewhat painful process.
One might mention that far less emphasis was placed, up until the 1970s, on ‘paper’ qualifications and ‘book learning’ for entry into many trades. Many older tradesmen might openly despise ‘book learning’ and emphasise that the ‘school of hard knocks’ was what taught real lessons. Leaving school at 14 and starting an apprenticeship in some trade or profession was, with some reason, seen as an equally, if not more so, valid path to the top of the working classes aspirations (skilled man on piecework rates in a closed shop with pay and conditions defended by the union)
The Collage Board also offers the Advanced Placement International Diploma for students who take 5 or AP exams in different areas.