Question for our American members.

I've not read LeCarre but have read Ludlum and enjoyed his books immensely. However, I will not take issue with someone over their opinion of which writer is better, as that is very subjective and depends solely on what the reader enjoys.

This is the old-fashioned classification, and I'm not sure if it's still widely used. But very roughly:

Third Form, age 13 to 14
Fourth Form, age 14 to 15
Fifth Form, age 15 to 16
Lower Sixth, age 16 to 17 (AS-level examinations)
Upper Sixth, age 17 to 18

PhilK

This is all true although since 1990 the school years have been numbered 1-13 with 13-14 year olds being in year 9, 14-15 in year 10 am so on. And to make matters more complicated, girls’ independent senior schools usually begin at age 11 and call that year the third form, then have lower fourth, upper fourth, lower fifth, upper fifth and so on. Or, in a school I worked at they called the bottom form lower fourth, then had middle 4, then upper 4.

So, I’m afraid, CarolinaPaddler, that there is no hard and fast rule on this and you’ll just have to hope the story gives you some explanation of the form and the corresponding age.

There you have why I, a simple Texas boy do not even attempt to write any kind of story outside of the USA, I rarely venture outside of Texas. I stick to what I know.

I make a big enough mess of that as it is, no need in making it even worse.

PhilK
Aren't some of those grades what you call "university"?

I submit for your approval, or at least perusal "everything you ever wanted to know about the American schooling system, but were afraid to ask"

First, there are public, private schools and home education. Home education is simply that. You are educated at home, typically by your parents, although you may be educated by a traveling teacher of sorts. Home education is seldom done although mostly by parents nowadays and chiefly in rural areas where either low population reduces the chance of a school being built, or religious POV (like Amish) almost require it. A traveling teacher was more typical of richer families who could afford paying a teacher and more common in early 1900's. Public schools are generally considered lower educated while private are considered higher educated. There are, of course exceptions to that rule.

Then you start with pre-kindergarten (also called nursery schools) and kindergarten schools. These are not mandatory, although some think it should be. Some private schools make it mandatory to have these primers. Pre-k is 3-5, and k is 5-6.
First grade (6-7) is the first of what is called Primary, Elementary, or Grade school. Besides semantics, there's no difference between the three titles. That said, grade school can go up to 6th grade, 8th grade, or 9th grade. In the old days, there was simply primary and secondary schools. In denser populated areas, and to bring students into greater responsibilities slower, some school districts would add a "middle school," also called Junior high school. These could cover grades 7th through 9th. Alternatively, Some schools go right into high school, also called Senior high school, or Secondary school. These could cover grades 9th through 12th.
Yes, there is some overlaps of what grades each school covers, usually dictated by a school district. School districts are nebulous areas of coverage, depending on population density. Larger population means smaller districts and vice versa. The School board is the governing agency that dictates levels of education, standards and see to the hiring and firing of principals, and teachers who work within that district. Substitute teachers are traveling teachers who fill in for sick teachers within that district.Teachers usually don't get vacations as they are off during the Summer.

In some school districts, or even some states, it is a standard that students attend "Summer school." Summer school is simply the roughly three months of Summer between one grade and another. Summer school is compulsory only when students have not made sufficient grades during the standard school year. having failed either one or both, means the student will get "left back" a year.
In chiefly northern states, you are scorned by fellow classmates for going to Summer school. In southern states, where poorer families can't afford air conditioning, but public schools can, most students prefer to attend Summer school where they can hang out with their friends in AC.

High schools (and some junior highs) school years are typically broken down by terms; Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. These terms will be replicated for the 4 years of college thereafter. High school ends with 12th grade which is primarily 17 to 18 year olds. Advanced students may skip a grade or three, while students who are left back once or twice may graduate in their 20's. Most would rather drop out, than bear that indignity. They may elect to get a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) instead, if they take a test to show a bare minimum of knowledge to graduate.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are general, occupational, regents, and honors. Again, availability regulated by school district, although most recognize a GED, general and honors system.

There are various tests that grade you regardless of your graduating, which are mostly used to persue a higher education and gain entrance to some colleges.

At one time, up to the 1950's/1960's, it was not mandatory for students to attend more than 8th grade. This is why President Hoover initially had only an 8th grade education. it is now mandatory for students to attend up to grade 10 as a minimum (12th grade in some districts). You normally wouldn't get an honors degree in high school unless you intended to attend college.

Community colleges are the easiest to gain entrance to, yet they do have entrance exams to place you. failing the entrance exam means you can take remedial classes to get up to par. Community colleges or two year colleges will give you an associates degree, or you can opt to metriculate up to a four year college. As far as I know, while any 4 year college may snub you from gaining entrance initially as a freshman, they can not deny you entrance after completing a 2 year college.
Two year colleges give you an Associates degree (AS), four year colleges give you a Bachelor's degree (BS), these are called "Post-secondary undergraduate" degrees. Four year colleges are where you persue your Master's (MS) and Doctorate (PhD) degrees, which are your graduate degrees. There is also post graduate degrees.

Four year colleges are solely called universities, yet there are differences between an Ivy League university and a regular university. Ivy League universities are Harvard (Mass), Yale (Conn), Princeton (NJ), Colombia (NY), Brown (RI), Dartmouth (NH), Cornell (NY), and Univ of Pennsylvania (Penn). They are considered very exclusive and are joined by this perception by Stanford, M.I.T., and Caltech

No, university (or 'college' if you prefer) is quite separate. Students there generally start at around 18, and first, second, third, fourth year simply refers to how long you've been there, with the academic year starting in the autumn (aka 'fall'). So if you entered uni in, say, September 2010, by the spring of 2012 you'd be a second year student.

Ours tend to be broken up into prep to grade 6 at Primary School. Prep kids are usually about 5 or 6 years of age, although I was 4 1/2 when I started. High School is Years 7 - 12, and uni is as Phil K says starts at 18 or so. How long your course is depends on what you study and how you prefer to do it. I think most courses are 3 years of full time study, and then you can add extra diplomas or masters degrees to that if you want extra qualifications.

Let's add to the confusion a bit shall we. I'm older, as I started First Grade in Fall of 1965. Then in my school district, Kindergarten was not mandatory, kids who went did so at a private school. My parents didn't deem that necessary. So First Grade was the beginning of my public schooling. Back then, Elementary School or Grade school in my district was grades 1-6. We then went on to Junior High School which was grades 7-9. Finally came High School which was grades 9-12. That was then. Now Elementary school is grades K-5, Middle School is now grades 6-8. High School is grades 9-10, then grades 11-12 are Senior High School. That change was made when I was still in school. I went to the old High School for grade 10 or my Sophomore year, then on to a brand new Senior High School for grades 11-12 or my Junior and Senior years. My Freshman year was at Jr. High or 9th grade. So, I made that change at mid stream.

Now, I hope that adds to the confusion. Just don't send me to the Principal's office.

Thanks for all the great answers. They are few and far between now, but Junior High 6th-8th used to be the norm in the USA. That coincides to usually 12-13-14-15 years of age depending on their birthday. That's now in most cases called middle school.

Where I've lived (Ohio and New Jersey) the term "middle school" replaced "junior high school" when it encompassed grades 6 thru 8 rather than either 7-8 or 7-9. To add a further twist, many districts with a 6-8 middle school then split their K-5 "elementary" schools into a K-2 "primary school" and a 3-5 "intermediate school." That's on the public side.

Some private schools use the terms "upper school" and "lower school," but not always in the same way: a K-8 school may use "upper" for 5-8, and "lower" for K-4, while a school that teaches only older children may use "upper" for 9-12 and "lower" for 5-8 or 6-8. These terms are often used in the more exclusive (or more expensive) private or parochial schools (the latter being Catholic or other religious schools) that call themselves "preperatory" (or "prep") schools because they "prepare students for college," so as to distinguish themselves from other private or parochial schools whose mission supposedly is only to give kids a 12th grade education (which pretty much don't really exist any more).

Then there are public vo-tech (vocational-technical) schools, usually just at high school level, usually organized so as to encompass multiple regular school districts, and whose mission originally was to prepare students for careers in various trades, but (at least hear in Joisey) have widened their mission on the "tech" side so they're often gearing students to go to college for things like engineering and computer science.

And then there are "charter schools" (which means different things in different states) which receive a "charter" to use public money to provide education outside the normal public school system, which often adopt "private school" terminology despite using publuc money (prep, upper, lower, etc).

My point? Here in the US we use so many different terms - some terms that mean different things in different places, and others that mean the same thing with a different name - that it really shouldn't be a big issue no matter what you call a school in a story: grammar, elementary, primary, intermediate, middle, junior high, high, upper, lower, prep, vo-tech, parochial, private, public, charter.