Minor question regarding USA/British educational systems

Running so very late for my partial tests, I’m kind of swamped doing research for my translation courses, since I need a vague grasp of how the educational systems in both Britain and USA are structured. On the upside, I finally figured out what the bloody hell your A, B, C, D, E, F grades and your GPA actually mean. That had been bugging me for years.

Anyhow, my question is simple: Headmaster, Principal and Dean. I need at least an idea of what each title means and what are the differences between them. Like, is one above the other, a synonym, a British/American equivelent of the other and so on.

Nobody actually gives Es as far as I know.

My high school and college (both in Michigan) use Es as the failing mark, while my grade school and law school use Fs. No school uses both.

Principals are in charge of American grade schools and high schools. I believe Headmasters are the British equivalent. Deans head up departments at American universities. For instance, Dean Revesz is in charge of NYU Law School. In my experience, the heads of entire universities are titled Presidents.

I see, yeah, that’s more or less how I understood it but wanted a second opinion. Thanks.

I went to a private school. It was separated into Lower School (Pre-K through 5th), Middle (6th-8th), and Upper (9th-12th). Each School had its own principal. There was also a Headmaster that was the kind of boss over the whole school (well him and the Board of Trustees). In my case, the Headmaster was a kind of CEO. We also added deans my last couple of years, namely Dean of Academics and Dean of Students (disciplinarian). I think the Deans handled more of the day to day stuff that the principals used to do when it was a smaller school, but there’s a good chance they were largely superfluous positions too.

Not in college, anyway. In preschool you could get Es for effort, but they might’ve changed that later on.

They operated on a 0-5 scale for me during grade school. Guess which end of the scale you wanted to end up on.

:hint:(I ended up getting solid 4s and 5s for the important stuff like doing homework, following the rules, and for my general social rank. Tests I frequently scored 0s on.):hint:

Headmaster is the British word for Principal, simple as.

And as for confusing grading, in the UK GCSE’s (compulsory tests taken at age 16) add an A* grade above A and a G grade below F. And a U grade for below G. At least they did when I took my GCSEs (er, 10 years ago).

Now that you mention the GCSE, I remembered I need to study what those tests mean as well…

A-Levels are for university entrance, SCE are the Scottish version of the GCSE and the SCE Highers are the Scottish version of A-Levels… missing anything?

Also, what are the GCSE/SCE for exactly? I know you need good grades in GCSE in order to take A-Levels, but what other uses are there for those?

Many jobs require GCSEs at A*-C level in English and Maths, some up that requirement to 5 GCSEs (including English and Maths). This is ironic as nowadays (especially when they’re getting paid £30 a week from Gordon Brown to stay in school) most kids who achieve that just stay on for A-Levels anyway.

And you’re pretty much bang on with the England & Land-of-sheep-and-dirt/Scotland differences.

If your one of those sad people who quit education altogether at 16, you can use GCSE’s to get into certain low jobs

Also, this is probably just my old school but the Dean here doesn’t seem to have any particular role - he just acts like a cross between an administrator and advisor for the headmaster