Meaning & use
secondary school
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Meanings
nouncountable
A school for older children, usually after elementary school and before college or university.
Grammar: Countable: use a/an or the, and make the plural with -s: two secondary schools.
Patterns
- go to secondary school
- a secondary school student
- at secondary school
She starts secondary school in September, when she turns eleven.
My parents moved to a town with a better secondary school.
After secondary school, he trained as an electrician instead of going to university.
nounbefore a noun
Used before another noun to describe things connected with this type of school.
Grammar: Always comes directly before a noun and does not take a plural: secondary school teachers, not secondaries school teachers.
Patterns
- secondary school education
- secondary school teacher
- secondary school system
Secondary school teachers in the region are asking for smaller classes.
The report compares secondary school education in five countries.
Word forms
| plural | secondary schools |
|---|
Common combinations
- go to secondary school
- In many countries, children go to secondary school at about age twelve.
- a secondary school teacher
- Her mother is a secondary school teacher in the city.
- secondary school education
- Free secondary school education was introduced that year.
- leave secondary school
- He left secondary school without any qualifications.
- a local secondary school
- They chose the local secondary school because it was close to home.
Synonyms and how they differ
- high school
- The usual American term for the last years of schooling; in the US it often means ages 14 to 18, while secondary school is the broader British term.
- middle school
- In the US, a school for children between elementary and high school; it covers only part of what British speakers call secondary school.
- grammar school
- In Britain, a secondary school that selects students by ability; it is one type of secondary school, not a general word for all of them.
Opposites
Word family
- secondary adjective
- Coming after the first or main thing; also used in the phrase secondary education.
- secondarily adverb
- In a way that is less important or comes later.
Commonly confused: secondary school or high school? secondary school or college?
secondary school vs high school
Learners often use high school and secondary school as exact equivalents, but high school is mainly American and usually refers to older teenagers only.
secondary school vs college
College comes after secondary school; students there are usually eighteen or older, so the two are not the same stage.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'secondary school' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Secondary school' can be used before a noun, and as a modifier it stays singular: a secondary school teacher. Option 1 wrongly adds -s to the modifier, option 2 drops 'school', and option 3 changes the word to 'second', which means something different.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “secondary school”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.