Have you ever wondered how school works abroad? Italian school system is very different from American one and you know what? Most of the Italians would do anything to go to school in America… let’s discover why through 10 curiosities regarding Italian schools.

1. OUR SCHOOL BUILDINGS ARE REALLY OLD & INTIMIDATING. When my English friend came to visit me, she was curious to see an Italian school: I took her to mine and she was completely shocked. I can easily understand why: my school was founded in 1856 and looks, from outside, like a court!! Most of the schools here are damaged: in 2013 a roof fell in one classroom in my school and we were obliged to go to another building until they did not repair it! Now we still don’t have a gym (the one we have is made of wood: not really safe, so we can’t use it) and an auditorium.

2. WE DON’T HAVE A CAFETERIA. In Italy you only have a break of 10 minutes during the day so you don’t have any time to study or do homework at school, plus we don’t have lunch at school so we don’t even have a cafeteria or a café at school: we only have the selling machines and the “paninaro”, a person that comes to school to sell pizza & sandwiches at break.

3. HIGH SCHOOL LASTS FIVE YEARS. And they will probably be hell for you, because at the end of high school there will be an exam called "Maturità" or "Esame di Stato”, that is regarded very difficult as it includes all the subjects that you study. From your third year of high school you receive credits that are useful for your final exam, according to your grades in every subject.

4. WE HAVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF HIGH SCHOOLS DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO STUDY OR DO. In Italy if you want to work as a cooker, waiter, in the hotels or stuff like that (so you do not need to go to university), you should go to"professionali" , if you are not sure if you want to go to university, you should go to "tecnici" and if you want to go to university, you should go to "licei". Talking about licei, you can choose between scientific ones, where you study more maths and science, classical ones, where you study Greek, Latin, Philosophy and humanities, Linguistic ones, where you study languages, Artistic ones, where you study Art, Psicopedagogic ones, where you study Psichology etc

5. WE STUDY ON AVERAGE 10 SUBJECTS (OR MORE). Some subjects, as I have just written, are peculiar for one type of school but others are compulsory so you find them in every school from professionali to licei: I am talking about Italian, Maths, English, P.E...

6. TEACHERS DON'T HAVE THEIR OWN ROOMS. Usually an amount of 20/25 students from the same year of High school are gathered together to form classes. Students stay in the same class, so with the same people, for the whole high school time and physically in the same room for all the time, because they are not the ones that change room: teachers go to the different classes to teach the students. Every class as a number depending on the school year and it is not 10,11,12 but from for the first year to 5 that is the last year and a letter ("section") depending on how many students are in the school: for example if there are many students from the 1 year, you will have more 1st classes and every class will be part of a section ("1^A, 1^B" etc.).

7. WE GO TO SCHOOL ON SATURDAY. If you come to school in Italy, remember that you’ll have only 1 day-off per week: Sunday!! School usually starts at 8:15/8:30 and finishes at a different time depending on the day, the year you go to and the school you attend. In a normal Scientific high school in the first two years you will finish school three times in a week at 13:30 and twice at 12:30. While in the last three years you always finish at 13:30. However some schools introduced a new system that is called "settimana corta" (short week) where they do not go to school on Saturday but they stay at school more time the other days of the week.

8. PEOPLE FROM THE SAME YEAR ATTEND THE SAME SCHOOL YEAR. For example now in the 4th year there are people that were born in 2000, while in the 5th year there are people who were born in 1999. On the other hand in Italy there is something called "primina" that allows students to skip a year of nursery school when they are children and start primary school one year before the normal time. So in a traditional class in Italy you can find people born within two years. And you can find two people born in the same day, month, year in the same school but one stays in the lower year and one in the higher.

9. WE HAVE THREE MONTHS OF SUMMER HOLIDAYS. In Italy school starts around the 15 of September and finishes on the 10 of June. School is usually divided into two terms. There are few holidays scattered for the school year: only two weeks for Christmas and one week for Easter. There are also some day-off holidays scattered for the year for national festivities and that's it.

10. TOO MANY TESTS (& THEY CAN BE ORAL). In Italy after the teachers have explained for a few lessons, they can decide to test people on what they did: they can either choose a day for a written test (and you'll only have 1 h during the class to finish it) or decde to test people orally. During an oral test, you have to answer to some questions that the teacher asks you about the topic (most of them are impossible!) & she will give you a mark based on what you said!

11. WE LIKE SKIPPING SCHOOL (EVEN IF WE CAN’T DO IT TOO MUCH). In Italy when you do not go to school, you don't have to tell the school but you must take the day after a piece of paper with the sign of you are parents (unless are not an adult) to "giustify" your absence, telling why you did not this, a lot of Italian students skip school (above all when we have tests!).