Great Britain has a very diversified and complex school system, which has been undergoing frequent changes and reforms. However, there are still many controversies concerning the structure of the education system, one of them being the organization and availability of independent schools. There are 2,400 schools in the UK that are not subject to local or central government control. They are sometimes called fee-paying (or, more accurately, fee-charging) schools because they charge parents fees and receive no state support. Nevertheless, there is no commonly agreed definition of the term.
             The core of the independent sector is formed by several hundred public schools, which despite the name are not part of the state education system. Originally public meant that school offered free education to the public and was under public management, as opposed to private schools that were run for the benefit of their proprietor. Some of them date back to Middle Ages: Winchester has founded in 1394 and Eton in 1400. But the majority was established during the 19th century, since when the term public school has been applied to grammar schools that began charging some pupils fees, while the others were paid for from public funds.
             Today, independent schools throughout the country offer a wide choice of day and boarding schools, single-sex and coeducational ones, none of which has to follow the National Curriculum. Instead, they offer a wider range of academic subjects, Classical Latin and Greek often being included. Which doesn't mean babies are tough these as it is possible to send a child of 2 to an independent nursery.
             There are 4 types of independent schools: Nursery/Kindergarten mentioned above, for children aged 2 to 4 years; Pre-Preparatory for 3 or 4 to 7-year-olds; Preparatory accepting 7 to 11-year-olds; and finally Senior, arousing the most controversies but in the same time the most desirable, for teenagers aged 11 to 18. There are ...