[General] What are some other ways to say ...?

[bunicchi]

I'd like to know some better or politer ways to call a "low-level high school." I'm taking a class at a graduate school and writing a course paper. I don't like the expression "low-level" or anything of the sort. Does the expression "an academically challenging high school" make sense to native speakers? Is there any other ways to express the same thing?

 

[Raymott]

It depends. What does "low-level" mean in this case? Your other term is even more confused. Do you mean a school for children who are not very intelligent or are poor achievers academically?
We used to call them "special schools", but that term has probably gone out of fashion in most places. "School for low achievers" would probably suit your purpose.

 

[bunicchi]

Thank you, Raymott. Yes, what I intended to say is a secondary school (especially high school) for poor achievers academically, as you say. In Japan, high schools are hierarchcal, and it is clearly known to anyone which school is better than which, as it is shown in numerical indicators. Therefore it is a delicate issue how to label those schools. Is there any other way to say "schools for low achievers"? It is not bad, but I would like to use a phrase that is politer (or more politically correct?) than that, if possible.

Thanks for your help!

 

[emsr2d2]

I can't come up with a good suggestion for this because we don't have such schools in the UK.

 

[bunicchi]

Thanks for your response, emsr2d2. I envy you -- I don't think the educational system in Japan is educational for children.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not saying there aren't under-achievers in British schools but we don't have specific schools set up for them. I can see both sides of the story though. If students who aren't doing particularly well academically are all put together with teachers who are trained to help them, perhaps their academic success will improve.

In the UK, although the government pretends it isn't so, we tend to have schools which particularly attract high achievers (mostly fee-paying schools but also a handful of state schools) and then all the other students just go to all the other schools.

 

[bunicchi]

The reality is, students in those schools are not taught by teachers "who are trained to help them" because there are no training program for teachers to teach in such situations, and students just develop their inferiority complex. I have taught at one of those schools as an English teacher and the situation was a mess -- students with terrible manners but smart and students with problems like ADHD and LD are all mixed.

 

[bhaisahab]

In the UK we have teachers who are specially trained as remedial teachers. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/remedial