Figure 1.--Most boys leave their prep school at about 13 years of age. Sme boys may still be 12, but very near age 13. Most by the end of the school term in June or July are age 13. This boy is a prefect and is in the last year of his prep school.
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Figure 1.--Most boys leave their prep school at about 13 years of age. Sme boys may still be 12, but very near age 13. Most by the end of the school term in June or July are age 13. This boy is a prefect and is in the last year of his prep school. |
Most boys leave their prep school at about 13 years of age. Sme boys may still be 12, but very near age 13. Most by the end of the school term in June or July are age 13. Some boys and many girls leave at age 11 to enter the junior department of their public school. Some schools believe that it is a mistake to move children at 11 from the "intimacy" of their prep school to the less personal environment of a Public school. One old boy described the Abbey School as "an idyllic little pond" before moving on to his public school which he described as a lake full of sarcastic piranhas. Many prep school headmasters believe that until about 13 most boys are not ready for the more demanding life of the senior school. The headmaster at Winterfold House, for example, insists that a "child of 13 can accept responsibility in a way that the 11-year old cannot ....'. The same argument is 'made by educators in the state system which is why schools systems in the United States and other countries have junior high (middle or intermediate) schools to help ease the adjustment between elementary and secondary schools. Such schools, however, are rare in English state schools. Prep schools also believe that a child that goes to his senior school at 11 will lose an important part of the prep experience, the opprtunity to gain positions of responsibility at the schools through the prefect system. One headmaster insists that "if a child loses the opportunity of exercising authority in a humble way at this level, he will be deprived of an important par,t of his educational training." Similar opportunities generally do not exist for the younger children at senior schools.
