In Italy the school system is organized in this way:

AGE ATTENDING TIME TYPE OF SCHOOL
From 3 to 6 3 years Kindergarden
From 6 to 11 5 years Elementary School
From 11 to 14 3 years Middle school
From 14 to 19 5 years High school
After 19 3 or 5 years University

Until this year the school was compulsory till you were sixteen, but now unfortunately we are going to go back to the old system so fifteen years and this age is not the European Level, that is sixteen.

Our School System has been changed many times in this period by our Minister of Education Mrs Letizia Moratti and she is still changing it.
We prefer to show you the “traditional” Italian School System because in Italy we are still using it.

We are in High school and we are attending the second form.
For the English School System we are in the 5th form,for the USA School System we are in the 10th grade and for the French School System we are in 5 ième(we think).

Our High School is a high school based on scientific subjects, like maths and physics,but with latin and Italian.

We call it “Liceo Scientifico“ and its name is B. Russell, it is named after the homonymous philosopher and scientist.

The building is not very big: students are less than 500; it is situated in a small town near Milan, Garbagnate Milanese.

Here there are not foreign students, only two.

In the school we may choose among five courses:
 Traditional
 Maths experimentation
 Maths & Physics experimentation
 Science experimentation
 European system

The traditional course is a normal Italian “Liceo scientifico”.
Maths course deepens the study of maths.

Our course is the 3rd in the list; it is different from the others because we work more on maths in the laboratories (computer-room or multimedia-room) and we have been studying physics since the 9th grade. We spend 31 hours a week in school. We have lessons on Saturdays as well
Subjects are:
 Maths (6 hours a week)
 Physics (3)
 English (4)
 Italian (4)
 Latin (4)
 History (2)
 Biology (2)
 Tecnic Draw (2)
 Art history (1)
 Phisical education (2)
 Religion (1).
The students that attend the Science course have had the subject of science since the first year.

Finally the European course is based on the study of the second foreign language, French, and Economics.
These last two courses have started this year.

We have more hours than the traditional course and,especially,more hours of maths,physics and laboratory.
In Italy there are also different types of school:
 “Liceo Artistico”, Art School ,that have more hours of art;
 ”Liceo Classico” ,that have more hours of Latin,Greek,history and phylosophy;
 Technical Colleges of different types,from surveyor to accountant to tourism to computing;
 Vocational schools,that are specialized in different topics, like hotel,tourism
 and computing.

Luca B., Luca M., Massimo De P., Chiara M., Mattia P. and Giulia V. ( 3 rd C, Liceo Russell, Italy)