Education A to Z

Education and Curriculum Terms: A Guide for Students and Teachers

Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.

Revising? We write GCSE revision songs — a playlist covering most subjects and the English set texts. Listen to the revision playlist.

500 terms, showing 441–450 (page 45 of 50).

S

Statutory guidance

Guidance schools and councils must have regard to. Not optional, and not quite law.

Structure

Also called Structural features, Cyclical structure, Foreshadowing

How a text is ordered — and one of the biggest sources of easy marks, because most students only write about language.

Student finance

How undergraduate study is paid for in England, and what is repaid when.

Subprogram

A named, reusable block of code. Procedures and functions, and the difference.

Support at unstructured times

Break, lunch and corridors. Where school is hardest, and where support is thinnest.

Supported internship

A structured work placement for young people with an EHCP, with a job coach. Aimed at real employment.

Surds

A root that cannot be simplified to a whole number, left in root form to stay exact.

Suspension

Also called Fixed-term exclusion, Fixed period exclusion, Exclusion

Excluding a pupil for a fixed period. Only the headteacher can do it, and it must be recorded.

Sustainability

Meeting present needs without preventing future generations meeting theirs.

Symbolism

An object or image standing for an idea beyond itself.

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