Graduation is in June. We have a Last Bell (Last Ring?) ceremony in the end of May - usually May 25 - where graduating students hold some kind of performance for teachers and other students. It includes remaking well-known songs: changing the lyrics so that they would be about our school, classes we had, teachers we knew. There can also be some kind of play. Basically, this is a ceremony of saying goodbye to the teachers and the school and doing it in a nice, theatrical way. One traditional part of this performance is a male graduate carrying a first-year girl (that would be a 7 y.o. girl) around the hall. The girl has a bell in her hand and is ringing it.
The leaving party is celebration for students. It takes place after the finals, in June. In St.Petersburg it can include riding a boat, visiting restaurant, walking along embankments at night (it's the white nights period). Largely depends on how rich the parents of the graduate students are :)
Dunno if this is helpful, but all I know is that, at least according to a friend of mine, there isn't 'secondary' school in Russia, it's just 'school' from age six to age sixteen, although I think you can stay in it up to eighteen. :) This particular friend was trying to talk about higher education (i.e. university) and called it 'high school' and we were confused. :P
That's true actually. Grades 1 through 8 are mandatory and aren't devided to middle school, elemtary school, etc. it's just school. Then grades 8-10 are also part of "school" instead of having a name of their own (like the british college system) but they're not mandatory. Leaving after grade 8 is simnply leaving school, leaving after 10 is graduating, with a ceremony and stuff. Although you get a diploma either way, just a different one for each.
University is then 5 years (after grade 10) and is the equivalent of a Master's degree, there are no options for a Bachelor's.
Cool. And how old is someone if they graduate after the 10th year? Are they 16? Or eighteen? Because I know a fair number of Russian people studying in the west who are maybe only 19 yrs old but they already have a year of Russian university before they decided to go west. So, can you graduate at sixteen?
A friend of mine from the Ukraine once told me that you CAN graduate at sixteen but also at eighteen, just however long it takes you. Is that valid in Russia as well?
They are 16-17 indeed. It's not uncommon (or it wasn't when I started school in the early 90s) for kids to go to school at 7years old, instead of 6. So, y'know, 16/17. You then start university the next year so for example friends of mine who are my age (21) and are living in Russia either already have or are about to get their master's degrees.
Everything about the school system is very structured in Russia as well as most former USSR countries. There's no such thing as home schooling (unless you're disabled), the programs are all pretty uniform and people don't ge to "take a few years off" between university and school. If you stop/drop out at any point you're probably not coming back to the education system. Therefore, if you finish grade 10 you do so with everyone else. You may have started at a later age (though again, the rules are pretty rigid, even if you immigrate from a different country, they're not likely to hold you back a year just so you can catch up), but there's no such thing as taking it at your own pace. :)
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The leaving party is celebration for students. It takes place after the finals, in June. In St.Petersburg it can include riding a boat, visiting restaurant, walking along embankments at night (it's the white nights period). Largely depends on how rich the parents of the graduate students are :)
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University is then 5 years (after grade 10) and is the equivalent of a Master's degree, there are no options for a Bachelor's.
Ahem. Got carried away a bit there.
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A friend of mine from the Ukraine once told me that you CAN graduate at sixteen but also at eighteen, just however long it takes you. Is that valid in Russia as well?
I'm curious, haha.
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You then start university the next year so for example friends of mine who are my age (21) and are living in Russia either already have or are about to get their master's degrees.
Everything about the school system is very structured in Russia as well as most former USSR countries. There's no such thing as home schooling (unless you're disabled), the programs are all pretty uniform and people don't ge to "take a few years off" between university and school. If you stop/drop out at any point you're probably not coming back to the education system.
Therefore, if you finish grade 10 you do so with everyone else. You may have started at a later age (though again, the rules are pretty rigid, even if you immigrate from a different country, they're not likely to hold you back a year just so you can catch up), but there's no such thing as taking it at your own pace. :)
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