[Vocabulary] school vocabulary =)

[Meja]

Hello,

I would like to check/learn some vocabulary related to school and teaching.

-the main teacher for one class (a teacher who is in charge of one group of pupils) - a homeroom teacher, a form master or mistress;
-a book in which all pupils' grades are recorded - grades book;
-a room in which teachers gather during the break - the teachers' staff room;
-a small notebook/a piece of paper where a pupil's grades and a report about his/her behavior are written and given to their parents - a report card.

I wrote the words which I know and described what are they supposed to mean. Are they correct and which other words are used to refer to these things in both British English and American English?

Thanks!

 

[MikeNewYork]

In AmE:

1. Teacher or homeroom teacher (they are different in AmE)
2. Grade book
3. Teachers' lounge or faculty lounge.
4. Report card.

 

[Meja]

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/homeroom

Is homeroom as a classroom used only at the beginning of a school day and does it exist in all schools?

Regarding teacher and homeroom teacher: a group of students (one class) has a teacher who is in charge of them in lower grades and who teaches all (most of) the subjects, while later they get a homeroom teacher who is in charge of their attendance, behavior problems, etc. and he/she also teaches one subject, while they have other teachers for other subjects. Is it like this or not?

Is a PTA meeting the usual word for regular meetings of the homeroom teacher and all the parents of a group of students?

 

[MikeNewYork]

I don't know about all schools, but homeroom was the base for us. After 5th grade we rotated out to three other rooms and teachers for certain subjects. The rest of the day we spent with our homeroom teacher. In high school, we started out in homeroom and the rest of the day was rotational.

 

[Meja]

Did your homeroom teacher also teach you some subject or he/she should only carry out administrative activities and discuss problems which existed in his/her class?

What about PTA meetings?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Yes, the homeroom teacher taught a subject. In the early grades, they taught several. We didn't have PTA meetings. We had periodic parent-teacher conferences.

 

[Meja]

In my country, most desks in the classroom are designed for 2 pupils and they sit at the same desk during lessons. Is there a word in English for a person (your classmate) with whom you share a desk?

 

[Meja]

This is not a "general language discussion," this is a vocabulary discussion! I am interested primarily in vocabulary and I wanted to know the words which are used in BrE and AmE for certain concepts, and if we have discussed certain concepts related to education, it was with the aim of understanding that vocabulary better.

 

[emsr2d2]

I can only speak for UK schools in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, when I was a kid.

1. At primary and junior school (first and middle school), we spent most of our time in the same classroom and the teachers were the ones who rotated. I just called it "my classroom". When I got to secondary school (high school), the room I went to at 8.45am for "registration" (to confirm my attendance at school that day), was called the "form room". After that, the students rotated to different rooms depending on the lesson. The teachers generally stayed put in their own classroom.

2. We didn't have a book where our grades were recorded at any of my schools. If a piece of work was marked, the mark was simply written on the piece of work which was submitted either on loose sheets of paper or in an exercise book. There were different exercise books for each subject.

3. It was always called the staff room.

4. At the end of the year, we received an "end of year report" which gave us a grade for the year for each subject. Until secondary school, there weren't very many subjects listed, just English, Maths, Reading, Writing, Music and Sport. There was a also a general section at the end in which the form tutors and headmaster/headmistress wrote a short paragraph about each student, their behaviour and their contribution to school life. At secondary school, the end of year report gave a grade for each subject studied. Usually, we just referred to it as a report. I still have all my school reports, from the age of 5 to 16.

 

[Meja]

Emsr2d2,
Thank you very much for this detailed reply, it is very helpful.

Regarding my second question, I did not mean a book in which only one student's marks are written, but all marks of a group of students who share a classroom. I understand that students get their grades written on a piece of paper where the test was printed or in their exercise book, but I suppose that there has to be something for keeping evidence, a place where marks are recorded and can been seen by teachers.

Could you also tell me how you called/call regular meetings of parents and teachers in school, and reply to my post #7, if you know such word (maybe it does not exist in English)?

 

[emsr2d2]

I assume my teachers kept a record of all their students' marks/grades but I don't know in what format or what they called it.

The annual meeting of parents and teachers was "parents' evening".

 

[MikeNewYork]

In my country, most desks in the classroom are designed for 2 pupils and they sit at the same desk during lessons. Is there a word in English for a person (your classmate) with whom you share a desk?

I am unfamiliar with that setup. I would probably refer to the two students as deskmates.

 

[Meja]

'A deskmate' was my first idea, too (I guess it's logical to have schoolmates, classmates and finally deskmates), but I was not able to find it in dictionaries when I looked it up, and now I have found it only here : http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/deskmate (East-African English :-D)

 

[emsr2d2]

We didn't have desks for two people. At first and middle schools, we had individual desks and at secondary school we had a mixture of individual desks and large tables/desks around which six or eight people sat.

 

[Meja]

That's why you didn't need a word for it. Our classrooms are obviously more similar to African ones.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Good job, Meja.

 

[Skrej]

In my school, teachers kept a 'grade book', in which they recorded the scores of students on all test, quizzes, exercises, homework, etc.

We had annual parent-teacher conferences, where your parents or legal guardians came to the school for a relatively short (probably averaged 30 minutes) meeting with the teacher to discuss each student's overall performance, attitude, participation, etc. If there were issues to be addressed, the parents and teacher agreed on a plan to rectify the problems, otherwise the teacher just let the parents know things were going well and what a delightful, model student Skrej was to have in class.

All our desks were individual desks, arranged in rows and columns. You might set in the same area surrounded by the same students each class, but there was no special term to designate these other students. Some classes you had the freedom to sit wherever you wanted, but it was still single occupancy desks. A few classes might have larger tables where you sat with several people in a group, but again, no special term for this group, regardless if it was assigned seating or not.