Useful Notes / British School Vocabulary

Following

Some of the terminology used within British schools, and often seen in fiction, which may be unfamiliar to other countries. This list is for Real Life words which are known within most schools. For definitions of types of schools, and more about exams, see British Education System.

Some schools (especially posh schools) have their own unique vocabulary; for example, Roald Dahl notes that at his senior school, prefects were always called "Boazers". Please do not add such terms to this page.

Many of these words appear in both fiction and real life. For example, while the Harry Potter books have an extensive vocabulary to do with magic, most of the school terminology is the same as what is generally used in real British schools. However, words which are unique to a fictional setting do not belong here.

Words used in England, Wales and Scotland:

• A-levels: Short for Advanced Levels: the exams taken by pupils in the sixth form, the results of which determine which university they can attend.
• Apparatus: A climbing frame, usually indoors, which often folds out from the wall. Older versions of these would have ropes for pupils to climb, but these are rarely seen in modern schools, because of safety concerns.
• Assembly: A regular gathering of the whole school, or a section of a large school, for an address by the head teacher or a visitor, or a class presentation. In many schools, these are held weekly or even daily, usually in the morning, and often include singing, prayers, or presentations of prizes and awards.
• Attendance award: An award given to pupils who are never absent in a term or year. These are notorious for Values Dissonance among parents, who might try to send very ill pupils to school to keep the award, or to avoid having to arrange childcare.
• Badge: Called a "pin" in the USA; an award which a pupil wears attached to their blazer or tie. The school logo may also be called a "badge" or "crest".
• Black board: A chalk board. Nowadays largely replaced by a "white board" or perhaps even a "smart board".
• Blazer: Jacket worn as part of uniform, often bearing the school crest or logo.
• Boater: Wide-brimmed straw hat worn as part of uniform, often at more posh schools.
• Bogs: Toilets.
• Break: Recreation time, not usually called "recess". Sometimes called "playtime" in schools for younger children.
• Bursary: This refers to a grant given to a person to study at a school or university. It can also refer to the room where the bursar (the person involved in the finances of the school) works.
• Cane or "the cane": Corporal Punishment, usually delivered with a thin cane, in the head teacher's office, or occasionally in front of other pupils. This has been illegal in state schools since 1987, and in private schools since 1998, but before then was very much a staple of schools in the United Kingdom, in both Real Life and fiction.
• Caretaker: The member of staff in charge of the maintenance of the school buildings and grounds, sometimes known as a janitor. More recently called "site manager".
• Charity Day: A day in which pupils are allowed to dress up to a certain theme, or at the very least not wear school uniform, in exchange for a small donation to a charity.
• Cloakroom: Similar to a locker room, where pupils hang their coats, and may or may not contain lockers.
• Club: An activity such as music or sport which takes place before or after usual school hours. These are often "useful" for working parents who have to collect children later than the usual school hours.
• Coach: As well as being a person who coaches, this often means a school bus, or a vehicle hired for a school trip.
• Common room: A room where pupils spend their free time, especially in a boarding school. A similar room for the teachers may also be called a common room, but is more usually called a "staff room".
• Composition: Old-fashioned word for a piece of written work, now usually called an "essay".
• Crocodile: A group of pupils walking close together, often in pairs, sometimes marching and swinging arms, usually on a school trip.
• Cross-country: Long-distance running, often outside the school.
• Design & Technology: Usually just DT or D&T. Broadly speaking, this is any subject involving working with your hands (and which would need its own specialised classroom for). Often this is synonymous with Resistant Materials (what an American would call "shop class"; working wood, metal and plastic). Other subjects involve Food Tech (or "Domestic Science"), Textiles and Graphic Design, which are all what they sound like.
• DBS: Abbreviation for "Disclosure and Barring Service" check, formerly called the "Criminal Records Bureau" (CRB) check, which is used to check that adults do not have previous convictions or police warnings. All employees who work with children or vulnerable adults must undergo a DBS check, leading to the phrase "you need a DBS". When these were introduced, they were notoriously complicated and slow to process, causing delays for some teachers being able to start work, and at first, adults needed separate checks for each role that they played within a school, such as for after-school activities.
• Detention: A punishment of being kept in after school, or during free time, and made to perform a demeaning task such as Writing Lines; or more usefully, completing homework which was not done on time.
• Dinner: The midday meal, now more likely to be called "lunch". School dinners are often notorious for being mass-produced Foul Cafeteria Food, even at private schools.
• Dinner lady: A member of staff who serves dinner to pupils, and may also perform other tasks such as cleaning, or first aid. Now usually called a "lunchtime supervisor".
• Drill: The Victorian equivalent of PE. Also used to mean a fire evacuation exercise, which schools must hold regularly.
• Exclusion: Modern term for "expelling" a pupil. In a state school, this is extremely difficult to do in practice, because of the amount of paperwork involved, and that the state has a duty to educate every pupil, no matter how "challenging" they might be.
• Exercise book: A notebook which pupils use to take down notes in class, or for doing homework.
• Excuse note: A note from parents excusing absence, also known as a "sick note".
• Fagging: More usually in a private or boarding school: younger pupils doing tasks for older pupils; often demeaning ones such as cleaning boots.
• Fire drill: A fire evacuation exercise which must be held regularly so everyone knows what to do in the event of an actual fire. Teachers are usually warned in advance when this will happen, so they don't plan something important for lessons that will inevitably be interrupted.
• Form:
  • A class.
  • A very old-fashioned term for a raised plank for pupils to walk on in a school gym.
• Founder's Day: A day to celebrate the founding of a school.
• Free meals: Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds receive their school meals free of charge.
• Free milk: Up to the early 1970s, children in state schools were given a small bottle of milk to drink every morning. Abolishing this was famously associated with Margaret Thatcher (the Education Secretary in the Heath government), earning her the nickname "Thatcher the milk snatcher". In actual fact, though, free milk for secondary school pupils had been abolished by Tony Crosland (her Labour predecessor) and she herself had tried to resist abolishing it for primary school children but was overruled by Ted Heath.
• Games: PE (see "Physical Education").
• Gap Year: A year out of education, usually taken between Sixth Form and University. It can technically be taken between any year of education. Gap Year students are stereotyped as being well off and effectively enjoying a year long holiday before having to actually start work.
• GCSE: "General Certificate of Secondary Education". The last qualifications undertaken before a pupil starts studying their A-Levels. They were graded from G-A* (A*, "A Star", being better than an A), but replaced with numbers in 2017. A passing grade is a C, and a pupil will need 5 to get into Sixth Form. Subjects often came both Foundation and Intermediate forms (the former being simpler but with a cap on the highest grade available). Students are expected to study some core subjects (like English, Maths, etc) but can pick and choose other ones (some colleges might want specific GCSEs to let a student study a given A-Level subject). They replaced O-Levels (see below).
• Golden time: A period of fun activities, usually once a week.
• Governor: A member of a board who oversees the management of a school.
• Grade: Not a school year: the word "year" is used for this purpose. A "grade" can mean:
  • The level of ability, or an exam result.
  • Progress when learning a musical instrument, usually grade 1 to 8.
• Grass: The class snitch. The term is also used in prison.
• Guillotine: Not for chopping off pupils' heads, but a tool for cutting paper neatly, often several sheets at once.
• Half-term: A short break in the middle of each term, usually lasting one week.
• Head boy, head girl, or school captain: A pupil, usually also a prefect, who represents the whole school.
• Head teacher: The teacher in charge of a school (the word "principal" is rarely used to mean this). Although the terms "master" and "mistress" are rarely used now, the headteacher may still be referred to as the "headmaster" or "headmistress".
• Holidays: Not national days of celebration, but the time off school between terms (rarely called "vacation" in schools, although universities sometimes use this word). In most schools, these are referred to as the Christmas Holidays, Easter Holidays, and the Summer Holidays, with the summer holiday lasting 6-8 weeks. National days when people do not go to work or school are called "public holidays", or "bank holidays", and are usually on Mondays.
• House:
  • A division of the school, usually across all the year groups, and often named after a notable former pupil or founder of the school. Houses often compete with each other in sports and other activities. Usually has one teacher in charge, called the housemaster, housemistress, or head of house.
  • In a boarding school, the buildings used for accommodation rather than classrooms may be referred to as "the house".
• Hymn book: Because collective worship and singing a hymn is often part of a school day (see "assembly"), in some schools, pupils would have their own books of words to hymns. Nowadays, a "smart board" is more likely to be used to display the words instead.
• ICT: A school subject that stands for "Information and Communication Technology", which often involves the teaching of digital tools and technical resources, such as computing. Sometimes referred to as just "Information Technology" (IT).
• Incommunicado: If a pupil takes an exam before or after everybody else, they are kept separate from the rest of the school, to prevent communication. Occasionally, a pupil had to stay overnight at a teacher's house, but this is extremely rare now.
• Inset Day: A teacher training day ("inset" is actually an abbreviation of "in-service training"), on which the kids get the day off but the teachers still have to go in, usually for a staff training session or team-bonding exercise (although some will probably skip that and catch up on paperwork). Historically called a "Baker Day" after Kenneth Baker, the Education Secretary in the 1980s who introduced this.
• Isolation: A punishment involving a pupil being separated or "isolated" from the rest of the school. Some schools contain "isolation booths", with partitioned areas to keep isolated pupils separate from each other.
• Joined-up: Short for "joined-up writing", or cursive writing.
• Lollipop man or lady: An adult who uses a lollipop-shaped sign to stop the traffic outside a school, for children to cross the road, more formally called a "school crossing patrol officer". This job used to be done by the police, but is now done by civilian staff.
• Master or Mistress: Old-fashioned word for a teacher, rarely used now except sometimes when refering to the "head teacher".
• Merit: A small award given to a pupil for good work. The opposite is a "de-merit", or "black mark".
• "Miss": How pupils often address women teachers, or "Sir" for men. Even married female teachers are often addressed as "miss", as a relic from when married women were rarely seen in workplaces. Some schools do not allow this form of address, insisting that teachers are addressed by their full name, e.g. "Mrs Smith". In most schools, pupils are not allowed to address teachers by their first names, although some progressive schools do allow this.
• Modern Apprenticeship: "On the job" learning, offered as an alternative to college and uni. Generally someone who takes this career path will work and learn on the job and receive an equivalent qualification after a few years (and an assessment).
• Nativity Play: A school re-enactment of the Christmas story. In British schools and nurseries, this is noted for involving very young children, and is often their first experience of "performing". Nativity plays often lead to great competition between parents, many of whom will want their child to play Mary or Joseph, and an associated phrase is "Why isn't my child Mary?" syndrome.
• Netball: A team sport usually played by girls, which is not specific to schools, but often appears in British fiction about schools. The sport is well-known in Commonwealth countries, especially in Australia and New Zealand, but can be almost unknown elsewhere. The sport has similarities to basketball: goals are scored by throwing a ball through a net, but players may not dribble the ball, and they wear "bibs" showing their team and position.
• Nursery: Mostly play-based learning for children, before formal schooling. Never referred to as "daycare".
• Ofsted: The government body which regulates and inspects schools, which is The Dreaded to many head teachers. The full name of this body is the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills.
• O-Levels: The old fashioned qualifications, held by Generation X and older millennials. Unlike GCSEs, these were a pass or fail exam which was needed to make it into sixth form.
• Overhead: Short for "overhead projector", with which a transparent picture or "slide" (also known as an acetate) can be projected on to a screen; often used for projecting the words of a song, and these slides can be written on with a permanent marker. These are rarely used in schools now, with "smart boards" being used instead. Not to be confused with a "slide projector", which uses much tinier slides (transparencies).
• Pen licence: An award for children who have passed a test in neat handwriting, and are then allowed to use a pen, rather than a pencil.
• Phonics: A method of teaching children to read by identifying sounds from combinations of letters, such as "ch". Sometimes considered a controversial method, because English has so many exceptions in pronunciation.
• Physical Education, or PE: Gym class. Used to be called "physical training", or PT.
• Playground: A school yard.
• Playgroup: A nursery for very young children.
• Plimsolls: Rubber-soled canvas shoes, often without laces, which used to be worn for PE, and were very much a staple of a child's school kit. Most pupils now wear trainers (sneakers), or footwear appropriate for the sport, such as football or rugby boots. Younger children may still wear plimsolls as they are cheap, and in some schools, they are used as Inside Shoes. Plimsolls are sometimes called "daps" in Wales, or "sandshoes" in Scotland. Before the practice was banned, a plimsoll was sometimes used for Corporal Punishment, and was often referred to as "the slipper".
• Prefect: A pupil who has certain duties or responsibilities, often involving overseeing younger pupils. Used to be called a "monitor".
• Prep: Old-fashioned word for homework. In a boarding school, this may refer to a time in the evening when pupils do homework under supervision.
• PTA: Parent and Teacher Association: a group of parents and teachers who discuss and run activities within the school, such as after-school clubs. Much less formal than a board of governors.
• Public School: See British Education System for a full explanation.
• Pupil: A child at school. Compare "student", which usually refers to an adult pupil at university, or at a sixth-form college, although some schools refer to pupils as "students".
• Reception: A child's first year of school, serving as a transition from nursery to more formal schooling.
• Registration, or register: Pupil roll-call, usually held twice a day. Often taking the form of pupils answering to their names called out in alphabetical order.
• Residential: An overnight trip, in which pupils and teachers spend a few nights away somewhere.
• Rounders: A summer bat and ball sport, often played in schools, with similarities to baseball. Has the advantage of requiring less equipment than Cricket, and does result in some Brits regarding baseball with derision due to it being (superficially) very similar.
• Safeguarding: Looking after the welfare of children, and procedures which adults must follow to protect themselves from allegations, such as avoiding being alone with one child in a room with the door closed.
• Sandwich Course: A course (usually at uni, sometimes college) where a student takes a year off to take a job in the industry they're studying for. Very similar to the idea of an intern in the USA, however they're usually paid for their work, and the role of an intern in popular culture is fulfilled by a "work experience kid" (see below).
• Scholar: This appears very occasionally in fiction to mean a pupil, but more usually means an adult who studies something in great depth.
• Schoolboy or schoolgirl: A pupil. The term is sometimes used by members of the public as an Immaturity Insult, perhaps when "school children" are causing a nuisance in shops, or on public transport, or when someone makes a basic mistake which can be called a "schoolboy error".
• School run: Parents taking their children to or from school by car, meaning that roads around schools are very busy indeed, as parents often try to park extremely close to the school, so that their children do not have to walk far. Parking directly outside a school entrance is generally forbidden by yellow zig-zag markings.
• Sets: Groups of students, who are divided based on their ability in a subject. The different sets will usually be taught separately, so teachers can better fit their lessons for students of differing skillsets. Students in First/Top set will usually be very good at a subject, whilst students in Bottom set will usually be the ones who struggle more. May also be called a "stream".
• Sick bay: Where first aid takes place. May be called a "sanatorium" or "san" in a posh school.
• Sixth form: Pupils in years 12 and 13, studying A-levels. A relic from when these years were the sixth and seventh years of secondary school. An institution exclusively for these years is a sixth form college.
• Skipping: Using a jump rope, or "skipping rope". There are many playground games and rhymes involving skipping.
• Smart board or interactive whiteboard: A large screen connected to the teacher's computer, which can display pictures or video, and can be written on with a digital pen. This has replaced blackboards and whiteboards in many schools, in addition to making classroom TVs and the "overhead projector" redundant.
• Snow day: When a school closes because of snowy weather. As snow is relatively rare in the United Kingdom, especially in the south (see British Weather), transport is often disrupted by even a small amount of snow, so schools are often closed because of staff absence as teachers generally live further away from school than the pupils.
• Sports Day: Annual all-school sports competition, usually focussing on athletics. More common among schools with a "house" system.
• Staff room: Teachers' lounge, a source of great intrigue to some pupils as it's most definitely out-of-bounds to them. Teachers collectively are often referred to as "staff".
• Teaching assistant or TA: An adult who is usually less qualified than a teacher, who may take a small group of pupils, or work with a pupil individually. May be called an "usher" in very old works.
• Term-time holidays: The unauthorised practice of parents taking their children on holiday during a school term, when travelling is much cheaper. Schools usually issue fines for this, but some parents consider the savings to be worth this cost, even at the expense of their children's education.
• Toilet pass: Permission for a pupil to use a toilet during lessons, often because of a medical condition. In many schools, pupils are usually not allowed to use a toilet during lessons, because of vandalism, bad behaviour, or playing for time.
• Truancy (or "playing truant"): being out of school without permission.
• Tuck: Snack food for pupils. A school may have a tuck shop, and pupils at boarding school may have tuck boxes.
• Tutor:
  • Somebody who teaches privately outside a school, often in a pupil's home.
  • A "form tutor" is a teacher in a secondary school who oversees a form, and conducts registration, but does not necessarily teach that form.
• Uniform: Compulsory dress code for pupils, and probably the one thing schools in the United Kingdom are best known for: schools which do not have compulsory uniform are rare. The strictness of these vary from one school to another, and teachers sometimes lament the time they spend enforcing petty uniform rules. The first action of a new headteacher is often to change the uniform rules, to "make their mark" on a school in very visible way. One argument for compulsory uniform is that it acts as a "leveller", and prevents pupils from knowing who is rich and who is poor, but this rarely works in practice.
• University: Higher education, beyond school, and usually a large institution, which may consist of several colleges. Pupils usually apply for university in their last year of school, through a service called UCAS (University and College Admissions Service).
• Visualiser: A more modern piece of equipment: a camera which projects a picture from a book on to the smart board.
• Whiteboard: A board which can be written on with dry wipe pens which has largely replaced the "black board" although in many schools this has now been replaced by the "smart board". Usually used by the teacher, but in some schools, pupils use them to make temporary notes.
• Work Experience: A few weeks in the school year for GCSE students where they're unleashed on workplaces to observe and learn what life is like outside academia (as well as have some practice writing a CV, applying to jobs, etc). There's a general assumption that they'll be given a non-task rather than actual work, or otherwise just be treated as a "gopher", not unlike interns in America. When they return, students are typically asked to write a summary of what they did, and share it with the class.
• World Book Day: An annual day to celebrate reading, in which many schools allow pupils to dress as a character from a book. This day is dreaded by many parents, who often have to put a costume together.
• Year group: The formal years of schooling are referred to as year 1 (age 5-6), to year 13 (age 17-18). Older labels for school years were "first year" of the type of school a pupil was in, for example "first year" of secondary school.

Words used mostly in Scotland:

• Dominie: A very old-fashioned word for a teacher in Scotland, essentially equivalent to "Master".
• Higher: Not exactly the Scottish equivalent of an A-Level, although that's the closest comparison. A Higher is a one-year course and an A-Level is a two-year course. Some sources put an A-Level somewhere "between" a Higher and an Advanced Higher.
• Janitor: The more common term in Scotland for the school caretaker. Sometimes shortened to jannie.
• Jotter: The Scottish word for a notebook.
• National Qualifications: The Curriculum For Excellence exams in Scotland, since 2013. The National 3, National 4, and National 5 replace the "Foundation", "General" and "Credit" levels of Standard Grade.
• Sandshoes: The Scottish word for plimsolls.
• Standard Grade: The Scottish equivalent of a GCSE until 2013, when they were replaced by National Qualifications.