primary school

noun

1. a school usually covering the first three or four years of elementary school and sometimes kindergarten.
2. elementary school.

primary school

noun

1. (in Britain) a school for children below the age of 11. It is usually divided into an infant and a junior section
2. (in the US and Canada) a school equivalent to the first three or four grades of elementary school, sometimes including a kindergarten

Word History and Origins

Origin of primary school¹

First recorded in 1795–1805

Example Sentences

Children in primary schools were reportedly warned by their teachers not to attend the weekend protests—a haunting throwback to the age of Communist youth indoctrination and intimidation.

From Time

An emerging body of research has shown that younger children in primary schools typically experience mild or no symptoms of the virus and are less likely to transmit it.

From ProPublica

“Only being allowed outside for an hour a day was awful,” said Tessa Patrao, 27, who is finally back at work as a primary school teacher after the 112-day stay-at-home order.

From Fortune

In July, Meira Levinson, a professor of education at Harvard, co-authored an article in The New England Journal of Medicine laying out how to reopen primary schools.

From ProPublica

In Denmark the positivity rate was at 6 percent when primary schools reopened, and under 1 percent when high schools reopened a month later.

From FiveThirtyEight

She saw her first tourist 10 years ago, three years before the village got a primary school.

From The Daily Beast

He was killed in the attack, which Boya Dee tweeted happened "right next to a primary school."

From The Daily Beast

Kate was visiting the Willows Primary School, which is, against all the odds, one of the city's most successful primaries.

From The Daily Beast

Among his eight primary school classmates, 24-year-old Moshe Uzan says that only one other remains in Tunisia.

From The Daily Beast

Would Lanza really have been gang-rushed by fast-thinking primary school students if he stopped to reload?

From The Daily Beast

There are fifty little boys and girls who go to the Blank street Primary School.

From Project Gutenberg

There seemed to be no disagreement on the question of educating boys and girls of primary-school age together.

From Project Gutenberg

Acts of indecency had occurred long before they went to the post-primary school.

From Project Gutenberg

The desirability of co-education at the post-primary school level, however, was frequently disputed.

From Project Gutenberg

In planning one post-primary school the rate of 0.7 children to a family was adopted.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• grade school
• grammar school