School Life

School Life

In our country school begins at the age of six. Many boys and girls usually leave school at the age of seventeen.

School year begins on the first of September. It is the Day of Knowledge. Children going to school with their bags and flowers on the first school day look so clean and nice. Some of them wear uniforms, but some don't.

Classes usually begin at eight. At primary school children have classes five days a week. Saturdays and Sundays are days off. Every day schoolchildren have five or four lessons. Pupils sit in rows and follow a regular timetable. There are many different subjects on the timetable. Children study Belarusian and Russian, Maths, Nature Study, Art, Music, PE and Handicraft. Many schoolchildren study English. After the second lesson they have lunch.

When classes are over about one o'clock, many pupils have dinner at school. After classes they go in for sports, dancing, drawing and other activities. They often visit museums and other famous and interesting places, theatres and cinemas with their teachers.

Schoolchildren have autumn, winter and spring holidays for ten days. School is over at the end of May and summer holidays are the longest.

My Favourite Subject

I am a sixth-former. This year we have begun to study some new subjects. They are Literature, Geography, Botany, Ancient History, French or German. At Geography we study the world around us, at Botany — different plants, at History — the life of people in the ancient times. There are so many things to do, to learn and to see. We cannot afford to go to the cinema or just for a walk very often, because we don't have enough time. There are six or seven lessons on our timetable every day. Some of them are my favourite ones.

Mathematics

We have Maths every day. It's the science of numbers. People say, Maths is hard. As for me, I don't agree. If you know the tables, it's as easy as ABC. At the lessons we learn to add,divide,multiply and subtract. Because everybody uses numbers and Mathematics every day: when we go shopping, plan something, build houses, plant corn and vegetables and so on. As for me, I am good at Maths.

English

We study one of the modern languages at school. It is English. It's my favourite subject. At the lessons of English we learn to read, write and speak. We learn the History and Geography of our country, Great Britain and the USA. We read stories after famous English and American children's writers. I like stories after Alan Milne, Donald Bisset, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain and others.

I want to be clever at English because English will help me in my future life. I shall read books in English, watch films and listen to songs and understand them. But what is more important, I shall speak with people from other countries and we'll understand each other. We'll make friends and will live in peace.

School is an important part of our lives where we bring a lot of time. And it is vital to feel comfortable there. Though sometimes you may have some problems either with mates and teachers or school subjects. But no matter what problem you have you need someone to talk to. Every problem becomes less terrible if you share it with anybody else, If I have any problem with my mates or teachers, I go to the school advi­sor, or we call her school psychologist. But in case my problem is a subject, I turn to a teacher or my mates with an advanced level in the subject.

I never had problems with teachers or mates at school. But one of my greatest problems is history which contains a lot of dates, names and loca­tions. I just can’t systematize all of it. To solve the problem I attended some extra History classes and talked to my teacher. Since then my knowledge of the subject has become some grades higher.

First of all, with a lot of homework you can cope by making the most efficient use of your time. I mean you need to do a part of homework on the day when you get it because you won’t have to repeat the same information on next day. Learning by heart will be easier if you do it partially by divid­ing the whole poem for another day. What do you think of it?

What concerns the missing lessons, I should say that having solved the first problem you’ll forget about this one. You oversleep because you do your homework at night. Save your time and decide what is more important for you!

As for my favourite subjects at school I’d rather call English and Com­puter science.

I find the learning of English or any other foreign languages an essential part of education. It is vital because knowledge of a foreign language opens a new world for us because we can speak with foreigners and read books in the original. It is a good way of understanding of other people’s nature and culture. In my studies I learn poems by heart and do a lot of grammar exer­cises. I am really interested in the history of words, their origin and usage in ancient times.

Knowing foreign languages has a practical value because it makes it easier to choose a profession and provides job promotion. Besides English has become the world’s most important language in politics, science, trade and cultural relations, aviation, international sport and pop music.

The other subject I am interested in is Computer science. One of my hobbies is computer programming and I can work on it for hours. It is much easier to do things on computer. At lessons we are taught different program­ming languages and we learn how to optimize our time working on com­puter. There are so many things which make your work easier and everyone need to know them.

These two subjects I attend with great interest and maybe one of them will become my future profession.

Today is quite evident that everyone should know at least one foreign language. Knowing one or more foreign languages makes it possible to get acquainted with different ways of thinking, to understand a new civiliza­tion. Learning a foreign language stimulates mental abilities and gives you a chance to appreciate a new literature, a different culture and to broaden our horizons.

Besides, knowing foreign language has a practical value as it makes it easier to choose a profession and provides job promotion. It helps to im­prove the quality of work because it reduces the time lost on obtaining the necessary information.

I learn English. At our lessons we read English books, try to translate some stories from newspapers from English into Russian and vice versa. I have some English handbooks and they are of great help to me when I study English grammar and do some exercises. At our English lessons we read quite a lot of dull texts from our textbooks. But I consider the best way to improve our language skills and habits to be communication: dialogues, retelling, expressing opinions and listening to the tapes. We imitate the sounds and intonations of the native speakers of English and work over our pronunciation. Sometimes I speak English with my friends after classes and they say I am making good progress in the language.

It is important for me to learn English because I’d like to read English and American literature and understand it without resorting to anybody’s help.