A secondary school or high school is an institution that provides secondary education . Some secondary schools provide both lower secondary education (ages 11 to 14) and upper secondary education (ages 14 to 18), i.e., both levels 2 and 3 of the ISCED scale, but these can also be provided in separate schools. There may be other variations in the provision: for example, children in Australia, Hong Kong, and Spain change from the primary to secondary systems a year later at the age of 12, with the ISCED's first year of lower secondary being the last year of primary provision.
26-602: Central High School is a high school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama , United States, enrolling grades 9 to 12 . The school enrolls approximately 700 students, and is one of three traditional high schools in the Tuscaloosa City School District along with Paul W. Bryant High School and Northridge High School . Central High School offers the International Baccalaureate program. Central High School
52-461: A high school (abbreviated as HS or H.S. ), can also be called senior high school . In some countries there are two phases to secondary education (ISCED 2) and (ISCED 3), here the junior high school , intermediate school, lower secondary school, or middle school occurs between the primary school (ISCED 1) and high school. International Standard Classification of Education The International Standard Classification of Education ( ISCED )
78-608: A different education system and priorities. Schools need to accommodate students, staff, storage, mechanical and electrical systems, support staff, ancillary staff and administration. The number of rooms required can be determined from the predicted roll of the school and the area needed. According to standards used in the United Kingdom, a general classroom for 30 students needs to be 55 m , or more generously 62 m . A general art room for 30 students needs to be 83 m , but 104 m for 3D textile work. A drama studio or
104-628: A greater variety of classes, or sponsoring a greater number of extra-curricular activities . (Some of these benefits can also be achieved through smaller but specialized schools, such as a dedicated special school for students with disabilities or a magnet school for students with a particular subject-matter interest.) In terms of structure, organization, and relationships, larger schools tend to be more hierarchical and bureaucratic , with fewer and weaker personal connections and more rigidly defined, unvarying roles for all staff. Teachers find that large schools result in more information to process in
130-534: A majority black area. This led to what could be referred to as the re-segregation of Tuscaloosa high schools. Even though the high school students took a vote to rebuild Central as one high school encompassing all four grades, the city council decided that instead they would build three separate high schools. Two new high schools, Bryant and Northridge, were opened in 2003. That same year the population of white students at Central dropped to three people, ample evidence of said re-segregation. This separation also resulted in
156-441: A new one. Nikole Hanna-Jones of ProPublica stated that the consolidated school "emerged as a powerhouse that snatched up National Merit Scholarships and math-competition victories just as readily as it won trophies in football, track, golf." In 1998, the desegregation order was lifted by judge Sharon Blackburn . In August 2000 the district board voted to establish two new high schools, and to reduce Central's attendance boundary to
182-422: A secondary school may have a canteen, serving a set of foods to students, and storage where the equipment of a school is kept. Government accountants having read the advice then publish minimum guidelines on schools. These enable environmental modelling and establishing building costs. Future design plans are audited to ensure that these standards are met but not exceeded. Government ministries continue to press for
208-561: A single basketball court could serve a school with 200 students just as well as a school with 500 students, so construction and maintenance costs, on a per-student basis, can be lower for larger schools. However, cost savings from larger schools have generally not materialized, as larger schools require more administrative support staff, and rural areas see the potential savings offset by increased transportation costs. Larger schools can also support more specialization, such as splitting students into advanced, average, and basic tracks , offering
234-417: A specialist science laboratory for 30 needs to be 90 m . Examples are given on how this can be configured for a 1,200 place secondary (practical specialism). and 1,850 place secondary school. The ideal size for a typical comprehensive high school is large enough to offer a variety of classes, but small enough that students develop a sense of community. Research has suggested that academic achievement
260-637: Is a statistical framework for organizing information on education maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) . It is a member of the international family of economic and social classifications of the United Nations . The ISCED was designed in the early 1970s to serve as an instrument suitable for assembling, compiling and presenting statistics of education both within individual countries and internationally. The first version, known as ISCED 1976,
286-550: Is best when there are about 150 to 250 students in each grade level, and that above a total school size of 2,000 for a secondary school, academic achievement and the sense of school community decline substantially. Arguments in favor of smaller schools include having a shared experience of school (e.g., everyone takes the same classes, because the school is too small to offer alternatives), higher average academic achievement, and lower inequality . Arguments in favor of larger schools tend to focus on economy of scale . For example,
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#1733085564030312-409: The 'minimum' space and cost standards to be reduced. The UK government published this downwardly revised space formula in 2014. It said the floor area should be 1050 m (+ 350 m if there is a sixth form) + 6.3 m /pupil place for 11- to 16-year-olds + 7 m /pupil place for post-16s. The external finishes were to be downgraded to meet a build cost of £1113/m . A secondary school locally may be called
338-557: The English model, but differs significantly in terms of labels. This terminology extends into the research literature. Below is a comparison of some countries: Schools exist within a strict legal framework where they may be answerable to their government through local authorities and their stakeholders. In England (but necessarily in other parts of the United Kingdom) there are six general types of state-funded schools running in parallel to
364-469: The English-speaking world, there are three widely used systems to describe the age of the child. The first is the 'equivalent ages'; then countries that base their education systems on the 'English model' use one of two methods to identify the year group, while countries that base their systems on the 'American K–12 model' refer to their year groups as 'grades'. The Irish model is structured similarly to
390-504: The Tuscaloosa city high school system, CHS especially, dropping from a 6A school leading to a decline in the city's athletic standing as a powerhouse among schools in the state of Alabama at the highest level. Central High declined academically after the opening of new schools. In 2004, all Central students were transferred to West Central so that East Central could be demolished for a new Central High facility. The $ 31 million school building
416-681: The age of three years. During the review and revision, which led to the adoption of ISCED 2011, UNESCO Member States agreed that the fields of education should be examined in a separate process. This review is now underway with the view to establishing an independent but related classification called the ISCED Fields of Education and Training. Related materials from the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training and also Eurostat provide further information and statistical guidance for
442-497: The ages of 13 and 18. Secondary schools follow on from primary schools and prepare for vocational or tertiary education . In high and middle income countries, attendance is usually compulsory for students at least until age 16. The organisations, buildings, and terminology are more or less unique in each country. In the ISCED 2014 education scale, levels 2 and 3 correspond to secondary education which are as follows: Within
468-520: The development of a third version, which was adopted by UNESCO's 36th General Conference in November 2011 and which will replace ISCED 1997 in international data collections in the coming years. ISCED 2011 has nine rather than seven levels, created by dividing the tertiary pre-doctorate level into three levels. It also extended the lowest level (ISCED 0) to cover a new sub-category of early childhood educational development programmes, which target children below
494-442: The education has to fulfill the needs of: students, teachers, non-teaching support staff, administrators and the community. It has to meet general government building guidelines, health requirements, minimal functional requirements for classrooms, toilets and showers, electricity and services, preparation and storage of textbooks and basic teaching aids. An optimum secondary school will meet the minimum conditions and will have: Also,
520-410: The larger environment (e.g., announcements about 100 programs instead of just 10) and that as individuals they form fewer relationships with teachers outside of their primary subject area. Smaller schools have less social isolation and more engagement. These effects cannot be entirely overcome through implementation of a house system or " school within a school " programs. The building providing
546-470: The post-2000 era the school had no yearbook nor a school newspaper. The State of Alabama designated it as a failing school in 2014, and was on the same list in 2017. The percentages of students in grades 9 and 10 in the 2015-2016 school year declared in "need of support" for subjects were, in the reading field, 68.6% of the total students and 44% of students taking the ACT , and in the mathematics field, almost 91% of
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#1733085564030572-579: The private sector. The state takes an interest in safeguarding issues in all schools. All state-funded schools in England are legally required to have a website where they must publish details of their governance, finance, curriculum intent and staff and pupil protection policies to comply with The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 and 2016 . Ofsted monitors these. School building design does not happen in isolation. The building or school campus needs to accommodate: Each country will have
598-631: The total students and about 65% of those taking the ACT. The school was removed from the failing schools list in 2019. High school In the United States , most local secondary education systems have separate middle schools and high schools . In the United Kingdom , most state schools and privately funded schools accommodate pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 or between 11 and 18; some UK private schools, i.e. public schools , admit pupils between
624-641: Was approved by the International Conference on Education (Geneva, 1975), and was subsequently endorsed by UNESCO's 19th General Conference in 1976. The second version, known as ISCED 1997, was approved by the UNESCO General Conference at its 29th session in November 1997 as part of efforts to increase the international comparability of education statistics. It covered primarily two cross-classification variables: levels (7) and fields of education (25). The UNESCO Institute for Statistics led
650-401: Was completed in 2006 and houses all current Central students. Clarence Sutton, Jr. became principal in 2010. In 2014 the student body was 99% black, and 80% of the students were designated as low income. For a five year-period in the post-2000 era, no Advanced Placement (AP) classes were offered at Central High. The post-2000 school began offering physics classes in 2013. For a period in
676-432: Was formed by the merger of Tuscaloosa High School and Druid High School in 1979 in response to a federal desegregation order. The school operated on two campuses, a west campus (West Central) made up of the former Druid High property and enrolling grades 9 and 10, and an east campus (East Central) on the former Tuscaloosa High grounds enrolling grades 11 and 12. The former mascots and school identities were discarded for
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