Secondary school is an educational institution where the second stage of the three schooling periods, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age takes place. It follows elementary or primary education, and is sometimes followed by university (tertiary) education. The term high school is used particularly in North America and North Western England though the two types of school are far from synonymous.
There are very many different types of secondary school, and the language used varies around the world. Children usually go to secondary school between the ages of 11 and 16 years, and end between the ages of 16 and 18 years, although there is considerable variation from country to country.
The following descriptions and definitions pertain to state-funded education unless otherwise stated.
Read more about Secondary School: Nomenclature
Famous quotes containing the words secondary and/or school:
“Readers are less and less seen as mere non-writers, the subhuman “other” or flawed derivative of the author; the lack of a pen is no longer a shameful mark of secondary status but a positively enabling space, just as within every writer can be seen to lurk, as a repressed but contaminating antithesis, a reader.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)