From Adelaide to Dalton!
For the past few weeks I have been attending
Dowdales High School. My name is Louisa Grealy and I am from
Glenunga International High School, Adelaide, South Australia.
I have been in Year 11 at Dowdales and attended many Year 11
lessons.
It's been very interesting to compare Glenunga and Dowdales.
During my
stay at Dowdales I noticed many differences between the schools,
both large and small. The general everyday things are similar
but at Dowdales the teachers seem much younger and dress
much more formally than those at Glenunga.
In Australia there is less of a distinction between course
work and
practical learning. There also seems to be more testing in
the English schooling system. In Australia, apart from the
Basic Skills test which occurs three times during primary
school, we have our main public exams in Year Twelve. This
is the Australian equivalent of Sixth Form. Australian schools
don't have GCSE's or A Levels. At Glenunga we have a choice
of the International Baccalaureate or SACE. Dowdales also
has many more compulsory subjects in Year 11 than Glenunga
does. Another difference between the schools is that in Australia
Year 12 (Sixth Form) is usually not separate from the rest
of the high school.
During my stay at Dowdales I also noticed the different
slang that
people my age use in England. This was very interesting;
there seem to be just slight differences in the common words
people would use. For example; Break- recess, Dinner-lunch,
Kiss-hook up/pash "He's fit" or "A bit of
alright"-hot, "Proper" or "Dead good" - "Fully" or "Totally" or "Sick".
It was also very interesting discovering people's beliefs
about
Australia. I found that the main questions I was asked were
about snakes, spiders, sharks and other poisonous creatures.
(The answer: yes, they all bite and some of them can kill
you). People also asked me to say "G'day mate" and "Put
a rat on the barbie" - I think that person meant shrimp!
Most of the other questions were about Neighbours or about having
Christmas in summer. It was also good to see what most teenagers
like to eat around Dalton and I found that chips, cheese,
gravy, salt and vinegar was a popular choice. Luckily I didn't
get around to trying it!
All in all I've really enjoyed my stay at Dowdales, I really
enjoyed the
more interactive lessons that I attended such as Dance, Drama
and P.E. I
also enjoyed going to the Guy Fawkes bonfire without worrying
about a
bushfire.
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