Woking College

Chris keeps promising to write about school, but he has yet to do so. Compulsory education here in England goes through age 16. Those who are planning to then attend university must first take 2 years of A levels at college. Thus, college is a transitional period between high school and university, and is roughly equivalent to our 11th and 12th grades. It is a time of increased freedom - there are no school uniforms, backpacks can be carried at all times, and students can go into town for lunch. Chris likes all of that! He also likes the later hours (8:45 - 4:00) that let him sleep until a reasonable hour. The campus is almost a mile from our flat, so he's out the door and on his bicycle no later than 8:30.

His timetable is different each day of the week, and on Thursday and Friday he is done by 3:00. He originally signed up for English literature, computing, physics, and maths. For his enrichment period on Wednesday afternoon he chose photography, and this is a picture he took of the campus for his first assignment. The math curriculum is different from ours in that it includes multiple topics in a single year. Thus, he will be getting an introduction to calculus, but is also seeing material that he has already learned. Those who do well are encouraged to add a fifth course - further maths! - and that is exactly what he did. However, it meant dropping photography. And now that I've gotten this started, maybe I can convince Chris to tell you more over the weekend....