Students in the UK and students in the USA, in my experience, are not greatly different. Kids are kids, after all. There are little things, though, that may be due to my new country or perhaps being in private school. But my kids now are top notch note takers. They take pride in it. They brag about it. I actually saw a girl envying another's clear plastic notebook dividers. The owner of the dividers beamed with pride. When I give notes, I need to be very specific about what they are to write down, because they will write down everything. They ask me what the title of today's notes is. I've never heard that question before moving here, and I didn't initially take it seriously. "Call it whatever you like. What does it matter?" was my thinking. Now, I give them an official title. It makes them feel better. They want it organized. When I draw diagrams, they take out rulers. No excuse for lacking straight lines. They have massive pencil cases full of every color pen in the rainbow. They rarely use pencils, except on scratch paper they won't keep. Scratch work is fine, but the notebook deserves fully polished and beautiful entries. I give them whiteboards for practice work and brainstorming. They are far braver when they know they can erase.
One possible reason is that they take far more classes than US students do at one time. Americans take 6 or 7 classes in a year, then they're done with it and move onto another, ideally. My UK kids take twice as many classes over the span of a couple years and take high pressure national exams at the end. Reviewing (or revising, as they say here) for those tests is a big deal. They'll spend weeks going over several years worth of notes from all these classes. It's easy to see why pretty and organized notes are so important.
So, if you want to praise a UK student, compliment his/her notes.
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