> The UK has a very strange educational system, curiosity isn’t encouraged, you learn like a good little peg in a round hole.
That was the feeling I had after one week in a UK school through an exchange program. Because my original exchange partner quit on me after seeing my picture, I got assigned a different one who was 2 grades higher. I was pretty average in math back in Germany, but in that class, 2 years above mine (11th while I was 9th), their math riddle that was supposed to take them the whole week was solved by me in one lesson.
I have a step-son who is (nearly) 13 and about to start seriously in on his GCSE's - the situation hasn't improved, the non-higher tier papers are just embarrassing, the foundational tier he could have done well by the time he was 10 - he likes maths and I always wished I'd pushed it harder when I was young but a spectacularly shitty home-life ensured while I did decent in my GCSE's I didn't do what I could have done - I make sure he doesn't have the same problem.
That was the feeling I had after one week in a UK school through an exchange program. Because my original exchange partner quit on me after seeing my picture, I got assigned a different one who was 2 grades higher. I was pretty average in math back in Germany, but in that class, 2 years above mine (11th while I was 9th), their math riddle that was supposed to take them the whole week was solved by me in one lesson.
This was around 20 years ago, though.