I am sure
@Songbird76 can tell us the difference between a European and an American basic education. I for one have no idea. Here is an article about what schools are like in Japan. Very interesting.
https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/schools/
It actually differs quite a bit by country. I know some countries have no kindergarten system and don't start school until 6 or 7. Here, they start on their 4th birthday, but it's not required until they are 5. But they do 2 years of kindergarten. The cutoff date is December 31st. So say, like my son's birthday is December 3rd. So he started on December 3rd, and that was considered 1 full year by the time school ended in July. But my daughter's birthday is in May, so she started in May, finished out that school year, but that didn't count toward her first year. When she started the next school year in the fall, that was her first year of kindergarten. They call that grade 1, and they go through 8 years, so grade 8 here is 6th grade in the US. Kindergarten is mostly play...they learn the sounds letters make, they learn colors, shapes, numbers up to 100, but don't learn to read, write, add, subtract until grade 3 (1st grade...6 years old) Then they spend a couple of years only doing the basics....reading, writing, basic math. Then they start adding subjects in grade 5 (3rd grade), like science and history and geography. Then in grade 7 (5th grade) they start learning English. There ARE schools who start with English already by at least grade 3, but ours wasn't one of those. At the end of grade 8 (6th grade), all kids are required to take an end exam, kind of like an elementary level ACT or SAT. Their score on that test (plus advice from their elementary school) will determine what type of school they can go to for secondary education.
It's divided by level, so you go to a school and all the kids at that school are at your level. It prevents teachers from having to teach to the average while some kids struggle, and some kids are bored. So there is practical education which is for kids who just aren't book learners. They start right off learning a trade. Then you have kids who can handle a bit of theoretical education, but are better with the practical side, that's VMBO-Basis....very basic education. Then the kids who are a kind of a mix....half theoretical, half practical = VMBO Kader. Then kids who are fine learning from books, but they are pretty average = VMBO GT. I believe all of those are 4 years....I know all the vmbo's are, but not sure about Practical. Then you get into the more advanced kids...HAVO...that's for your B average kids...they do well in a regular school setting, but they are not necessarily Univerity bound....they might be more community college kids, and that's 5 years of high school and then they go on to college. And then you have kids that are really easy learners, always get an A in every subject, like my daughter, and that's VWO. That's 6 years. It's basically an AP (advanced placement) high school. You CAN stream from one level to another once you finish a level by adding a year. So, if you start at VMBO GT, you can move on to HAVO when you finish your VMBO program, but then you do 2 years of HAVO instead of just one...or you go from Havo to VWO by adding 2 years. So you'd take 7 years to complete to VWO level instead of 6, or 6 years to complete Havo level instead of 5. And then you can do a more difficult college, too. You can not go to University with a VMBO or Havo diploma. You would have to move on to the next level of high school until you complete VWO in order to go to University, but you can get there....it just takes longer.
I know Germany starts high school a year earlier than we do here, because a friend of mine moved to Germany and her son started high school that year, and my daughter, who is older, was still finishing elementary school. And I know they also divide their high schools, but I don't think they have as many levels as we have here. Her son is going VWO there, but I'm not sure how many years he has to go and if that's different per level.
Personally, I really like the division into levels. You don't have the issues with it moving to fast for some and too slow for others. Everyone should be more or less the same level, and they get along better because they also have more in common with their classmates. The more serious students are with the others like them. DD's class has only 20 kids so they are all pretty close. Also something different over here is your class stays the same. You are with the same kids in every single class. The kids that you start bridge class (junior high) with are the kids the same 20 that will be in your senior year classes, and you won't have anyone from a different class in any of your classes. So there's no "he's in my chemistry class....I could ask him what the homework was". If he's in one of your classes, he's in ALL of your classes, if that makes sense. But I'm not sure how that works elsewhere in Europe. And there's no such thing as electives. At least not until at least 3rd year of high school...then you choose a focus and you can drop certain things. Like you can choose to focus on the arts or more on the sciences. If you want to be a doctor, you'll have to have more sciences, and should you want to do something with music later, you focus more on the arts. What you choose will affect your career, because if you choose not to take chemistry, then you won't be able to have a career in something that requires that. So like...if you want to be an astronaut, you'd better take physics and high level math courses, where as a doctor, biology is more important. Basically, they specialize a lot earlier here.