The First School
The first schools were set up by the ancient Greeks and the Chinese, a very, very long time ago. There have been various sorts of schools in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales for many centuries.
But - unbelievably - it wasn't until the Education Act of 1944 that secondary education was free for all pupils in England and Wales. Ask your grandad. Or your granny. Or your teacher. They might remember it.
Schools around the world come in all sorts and shapes and sizes but most of them will have classrooms, a playground, a hall, a library, and a canteen where you can have delicious, or disgusting, school dinners.
The Last School
You may think that your school and your teachers have been there forever. But, Extreme Facters, you would be wrong. Terribly, terribly, woefully wrong. Because schools come and schools go.
How long has your school been around? When was it built? Can you find out? If you find out, could you tell me?
On a place called Caldey Island, which is off the Pembrokeshire coast - go on, go and get an atlas - the local school has opened and closed several times during its long history, because the number of children on the island rises and falls.
The Biggest School
It is generally agreed that the biggest school in the world - the school with the most pupils - is the City Montessori school in Lucknow, in India.
The school was set up by a Mr and Mrs Gandhi in 1959. It has more than 32,000 pupils. Can you believe it? Thirty-two thousand! That's bigger than a lot of universities! In fact, that's bigger than a lot of towns.
The biggest schools in Great Britain and Ireland have around 2,000 pupils. So City Montessori school is 16 times as big as most schools here!
The Smallest School
The smallest school in the UK is Holy Island Church of England First School. It usually has fewer than half a dozen children.
In Australia there is the famous School of the Air, where pupils in remote areas learn by listening to special radios.
So, perhaps, a school is any place where people come together to learn. In which case, maybe your family is your school, or your club? So how about setting up your own school, the School of You?
The Best School
The best school in the world is probably Springfield Elementary or Bikini Bottom Elementary. But, of course, these aren't real - they are fictional schools in The Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.
The best school in reality might be Chelmsford county high school for girls (the pupils get great exam results there).
But are there other ways, other better ways, to judge what a great school is? How do you think we should judge what is the best school? The nicest teachers? The biggest classrooms? The best lunches?
The Worst School
Perhaps you think your school is the worst school in the world?
Well, you'd be wrong. Because there have been many, many worse schools than your school, however bad it may be. Honestly.
In Victorian schools a big room would often be divided up into classrooms using curtains: imagine all the noise!
And the windows were built high up in the walls, to stop children
daydreaming. And in some schools there were as many as 100 children in a class!
