The educational path taken by most students in the US begins at a pre-school level. Many public school systems offer kindergarten as the beginning of a child’s formal education. Elementary education typically takes a child from the first grade to the fifth or sixth grade. Secondary education typically involves middle school, junior high school, and high school. It is called secondary because the skill learned at this level build on the basic skills learned in elementary school. Topics learned in secondary education tend to be higher-level mathematics, literature, social sciences including civics and history, and life sciences including biology, chemistry, and physics.



