Thanks for the explanations, guys. What is so special about the second year that it requires a specific name? What age is 10th grade?
In the UK we have five-years of secondary education (age 11-16) plus two optional sixth-form years.
It's bad enough trying to become familiar with the UK system as it is now! When I was at school, years were numbered within the school (primary or secondary), from first year upwards. Sometime in the last 15 years they seem to have switched to referring to the entire school career, from year 1, when you first start at school, onwards. It's very confusing when the kids refer to being in 'year 9' or 'year 10' - it means absolutely nothing to anyone over the age of about 30 (unless they have kids of their own!) and requires a lot of mental computation to actually work out that they mean 3rd year (age 13/14) or 4th year (age 14/15) of secondary school.
Bizarrely, to confuse the issue more, the term 'sixth form' or 'sixth form college' has been retained beyond the newer year 1 to year 11 (?) terminology - probably to confuse everyone else when they try and understand our system! :biggrin1:
