Meaning & use
super school
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Meanings
nouncountableinformal
A very large school, often newly built, that offers many subjects and modern facilities.
Grammar: Countable: say 'a super school' or 'super schools' when talking about more than one.
Patterns
- a super school for something
- build/open a super school
- at a super school
The city opened a super school with 3,000 pupils and its own swimming pool.
Parents toured the new super school before deciding whether to send their children there.
Critics say super schools are too big for teachers to know every student well.
nouncountableinformalapproving
A school that is considered excellent or better than others, especially in a particular area.
Grammar: Countable and often used with 'a' when praising one school; the plural is 'super schools'.
Patterns
- a super school for something
- be a super school at something
Her dance academy has become a super school for young performers.
The article called it a super school for science and engineering.
Word forms
| plural | super schools |
|---|
Common combinations
- open a super school
- The council plans to open a super school on the old factory site.
- a new super school
- A new super school will replace three smaller buildings.
- attend a super school
- More children now attend a super school than a village primary.
- a super school for science
- It is known as a super school for science and music.
- criticism of super schools
- There has been criticism of super schools for being too large.
Synonyms and how they differ
- academy
- In British English an academy is a state school outside local-authority control; it may be any size, so it is not always large like a super school.
- mega-school
- This is an even more informal word for a very big school and sounds more exaggerated than super school.
- comprehensive
- A comprehensive is a large state secondary school for all abilities; it is the official type, while super school is a looser, news-style label.
Opposites
Word family
- school noun
- A place where children go to be taught.
- schooling noun
- The education a person receives at school.
- schoolchild noun
- A child who goes to school.
Commonly confused: super school or super-school?
super school vs super-school
The hyphenated spelling appears in some headlines, but the usual written form is two separate words: super school.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'super school' most naturally?
Choose one answer.
'Super school' is a countable noun, so it needs an article and can follow verbs like 'build'. Option 2 wrongly uses it as an adjective after 'is', option 3 treats it as a verb, and option 4 needs an article before the noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “super school”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.