In Egypt we call it preparatory school
the day starts at 7:30 am till 1:30 or 2:00 pm

Middle schools are rare nowadays in the UK, and they are only found in a handful of places. Wikipedia tells me that there are now only 146 middle schools in the whole country. I actually lived in one of the few counties that had middle schools and thus attended one, but when I was 12 the local education authority decided to scrap them and revert to the two-tier system (primary school followed by secondary school) which is found across most of England and Wales.

In the UK, from the ages of 4-11 you go to primary school. From the ages of 11-16 (or 11-18 depending if you don't leave at 16) you go to secondary school (high school.)

A junior high school is a middle school. This is in the American education system. "In the United States, middle school is a school between elementary school (grades 1-4, 1-5 or 1-6) and high school (grades 9-12 or 10-12). Depending on location, middle school contains grades 6-8, 7-8, or 7-9."

As you can see, they don't exist everywhere.

It varies on school on what grades are called or considered.

I grew up where it was 7th and 8th grade as junior high. My kids attend school here there is a middle school 6, 7, 8 and some schools include 9th grade.

I started all my schooling years  at 8:30am to 3:20 but junior high ended at 3:30 I think if I remember corretly but that was monday to Friday.

My kids go to school elementary from 8:25am to 3:30 but on Wednesdays it is 2:05 dismissal. Middle school and high school vary times I think it was said for the older kids to be able to take younger kids if needed. WEednesdays for middle school starts ta 9 not 8:30 but ends at 3:30.

Helen and other members, I can't remember now at what precise time school started every day when I was a teenager, but it always seemed too early.  Please allow me to refer you to this following article about a major neuroscience project which studies the sleep patterns of teenagers.  An initial recommendation from the science team is that school should start at a later hour to allow teenagers to sleep more!

Please enjoy this interesting article on this piece of cutting edge research.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/08/start-school-later-11am-students-sleep

@Helen

It sounds tiring, and it is, too. But I don't have chance to choose about what I can do after school.