Primary & Secondary Education

In the Straye, students attend a primary school from 6-10, an intermediary school from 11-14, and a secondary school from 15-19. Students finish secondary school anywhere from ages 16-19 depending on the school, socioeconomic status, and ambitions of the student.

### Early Childhood Education

Primary school begins at age 6 in the Straye and has for a long time. It became common practice for wealthier families to employ tutors for children over the age of 3, so they might be “better prepared” to become first year primary students, and soon private-owned pre-primary programs became the standard—resulting in a successful push for a similar universal service from the government.

There is a spectrum of educational approaches for children between the ages of 3 and 6. The most rigorous mimics the school environment students will eventually face, and starts early on the skills that will make its pupils into future university graduates. The least rigorous is essentially daycare. Typically, private programs tend to be the more rigorous, and public programs must do less, even with above average funding. There are, however, some newer private pre-primary schools who subscribe to less traditional test-oriented pedagogy; these are growing in popularity among young, educated parents rallying against the demands of their own private schooling.

### Aptitude Assessments

An aptitude assessment tests for the innate ability to perform magic. While there are those who believe practical magic performance can be taught to anyone, it comes more easily to some than others, like being born with perfect pitch or eidetic memory. Assessments attempt to locate those individuals within the general population. Testing begins yearly within the school system, though private assessments are available earlier for interested families.

Children with aptitude in the public system have two options: attend a private school with an appropriate magic-oriented tract or, if that is financially impossible, attend a Foundry. The majority of children who do show magical aptitude do so before the age of ten, though testing does not stop until secondary school.

The tests involve presenting the pupil with runes in the form of puzzles and other cognitive exercises. Assessors then observe if the pupil activates any of the runes, as rune activation is the basis of practical magic and can be subconscious in untrained individuals. Runic aspects are more difficult to diagnose: some people with runic aspects don’t actually possess any natural aptitude beyond the magic their rune allows; other people still do not realize they have runic aspects.

### Subjects and Age Brackets

Standard school subjects include language, history, art, civics, politics, and the sciences. A theoretical magic education may be taught to university-bound twelfth year students, in preparation for the College of Magic's entrance exam, but is otherwise not included in any curriculum. Students attend a primary school from 6-10, an intermediary school from 11-14, and a secondary school from 15-19. Students finish secondary school anywhere from ages 16-19 depending on the school, socioeconomic status, and ambitions of the student.

## School Systems

### The Public System

Compared to what you might see across the Main, or even in other confederation states, the public school system in Fairsing Straye appears formidably advanced. Class sizes are relatively low, averaging 15-20 students, and course offerings are vast. Secondary public education allows for a great degree of specialization, with an eye toward preparing students for the workforce. Whereas the private school system assumes university is the intention of all its graduates, the public system allows for trade and other specialized degrees—there are secondary schools catering to business, agriculture, the arts, and so on. The student population tends to be evenly split between those in standard general education programs and those pursuing vocational degrees. A student who is not university-bound can finish their secondary school career at 16 with a sufficient course load.

For public school students with university ambitions, there are a small number of academic excellence programs as well. These programs handle exclusively students who are *not* eligible for the College of Magic, as they do not possess the baseline magical aptitude necessary. Students with aptitude or runic aspects who matriculate through the public system are funneled toward the Foundries.

### The Private System

Private schools in the Straye center their curriculum and culture around one thing: admission to the University, and for some, to the College of Magic in particular. The pinnacle event of one’s secondary school career is the entrance exam for whichever college they’re applying to. The social culture of these schools also tends toward competition and superiority, whether that be social or academic, with the two easily feeding into one another. Many students come from families with generations-long histories at the school and in the city. Scholarships exist, but they almost exclusively go to students with strong magical aptitudes. Any other applicant, no matter how studious, will lose out to a guaranteed admission to the College of Magic—these schools hold their acceptance rates up like badges of honor.

There are both boarding and day academies in the Straye, with the largest concentrations in Bursden and the University District. Teachers are always University graduates themselves. Socials involving multiple schools are common, with an eye to cultivating the “next generation” of blue bloods—while there are rivalries, they can always unite around a sense of being better than those on the south side of the river.

### The Foundries

On the most basic level, a foundry is a hybridization of a public magnet school and a boarding school. The Foundry system is intended as an immersive educational experience that benefits both the individual students and society as a whole. The system is controversial among the public for its separation of children and families and mixed success rates. See: more on the Foundries.

### Public v. Private Promises & Realities

The Straye’s Department of Education has long claimed to run public schools on par with the tuition-funded academies in Bursden. Equal opportunity education is, after all, the bedrock of a true meritocracy. Whether or not the Department has fulfilled its mission is a hotly contested matter—even as the budget increases, it doesn’t increase enough to rival the legacy-based funding of the top private schools. The Foundry system, which was developed to increase educational opportunities for talented young people in public schools, has been deemed a failure by some experts, though the Department continues to reform the Foundries year after year. And, as more money goes to the Foundries, less goes to the rest of the public schools, which handle the vast majority of students.