Secondary Education in England lasts for five years: children begin being 11 years old and end with 16 years. So, they began one year before, but end at the same age. At the end they have to pass an state exam called GCSE, that allow them to continue the path to their A Levels exams that control the access to the University.
The school i visited was an Academy. Academies are state funded charities ("Fundaciones" in Spanish), but they can get additional funding and, specially, don't have to follow the National Curriculum, enjoying much more freedom in their school project design. But methodologically and at the technological level, this one was quite traditional. In each classroom there was an Interactive Whiteboard and a dedicated laptop, but the students used textbooks.
But there were some very attractive projects. All students play a PLB gamification. They belong to one house, there are four of them, like in the Harry Potter movies. Students earn points for their house and get badges of honour for great performances in categories like football, rugby, acting, punctuality, helping...
There is a teacher in charge of each house. Once a week, all the house members (25% of the school) join together in the theatre. There, they check the leaderboard of the gamification, congratulate students with merits, confirm their house motto and vision and have a lesson about ethics and moral values. Quite interesting, indeed.
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