COLLÈGE ENSEIGNEMENT SECONDAIRE

Secondary education is compulsory until the age of 16. The first cycle for pupils aged 11–15 years takes place at a collège.

As with elementary schools, you should register at your local mairie by June or sooner if you want your child to be schooled outside your catchment area.

Otherwise, enrolment forms are distributed to children in the spring term whilst they are in their CM2 classes. Parents are asked to indicate whether their child will be a border, whether their child will be having school meals or be going home for lunch and which modern language they intend to study. This sheet is returned to the CM2 teacher and parents are contacted by their local collège who will send further details.

Year groups in secondary schools in France are named in descending order: the youngest pupils being in the ‘sixth’ year:

• Sixième: written as 6ème: for pupils from 11–12 years
• Cinqième: 5ème: 12–13 years
• Quatrième: 4ème: 13–14 years
• Troisième: 3ème: 14–15 years.

Who’s Who At Collège And Lycée

Le Principal and Le Proviseur

The head of a collège is le principal and the head of a lycée is le proviseur. In both cases, the head is responsible for the organisation, management and safety of the establishment as well as the teaching methods.

The head chairs school meetings and has the final say regarding option choices for your child. An appointment needs to be made for a meeting.

L’adjoint Au Chef D’ètablissement

Le principal/Le proviseur often has a deputy, l’ajoint. Deputies may be delegated to chair meetings and since they are more available than the head, they may be who you see regarding a problem.

Le Conseiller Principal D’education

Often known in the abbreviated form, le CPE, with the help of a team of surveillants, ensures that pupils are punctual and that their school attendance is regular. Le CPE notifies parents about any discipline problem that has arisen at school. It is to le CPE that you send your child’s medical certificates and notes justifying why your child is late.

The role of le CPE goes even further since, being a full member of the teaching staff, he or she helps pupils in difficulty face up to their responsibilities, going as far as arranging tutorials if need be. Le CPE trains the elected class delegates to take their position seriously and is closely involved in the organisation of school exams, school exchanges and outings.

Les Professeurs

Pupils have un prof (a teacher) for each subject and the child must adapt to their particular approach. Pupils change rooms for each subject taught.

Those wishing to train as a teacher in France are selected on their academic merit. They are not appointed by headteachers but centrally by the ministry of education. They are effectively civil servants for life.

Team teaching is the exception rather than the rule and general co-operation between members of staff can be lacking amongst this highly individualist profession.

A national curriculum means that all teachers in all subjects follow the same programme of studies.

Le Professeur Principal

The class teacher (or form teacher) is the person to see if a parent has questions regarding option choices and concerns about general progress. Le professeur principal takes a lead at the three conseils de classe (class meetings for teachers and delegates) a year and coordinates what your child’s teachers feel about your child. Le professeur principal is the one who writes the general comment at the bottom of your child’s report.

What’s What At Collège And Lycée

Réunions parents-professeurs

Parent-teacher evenings take place once a year when you get the chance to meet your child’s teachers. However, these can be very chaotic affairs since appointments are usually not made beforehand and parents wait around for their turn to see the teacher. Given that the French do not queue in an orderly manner like the English, it is often not easy to work out where you are in what seems to be a small crowd. Patience is required.

Teachers themselves are the first to point out that parent-teacher evenings are not the place to discuss real problems – you should make an appointment in order to talk at length.

Le Carnet De Correspondence

Sometimes known as Le carnet de liaison, this is a link between family and school and every child has to carry le carnet round at all times.

School rules are outlined (and have to be signed by parents and pupil), absence and lateness is justified by the parent and checked by the school. Pupils note down timetable changes, parents’ meetings, outings and school results for their parents to acknowledge.

If your child has a difficulty in a particular subject, you can ask for an appointment with the subject teacher concerned. To do this, you need to fill in the appropriate box in your child’s carnet de correspondence. Your child will then show the subject teacher the box that you have completed in the carnet and the teacher will complete the box with the date and time of when he or she can see you. In the past, I have tried to make an appointment over the phone through the school secretary (hoping to speed up the process, since pupils do not necessarily see every teacher every day and teachers are not required to be at school when they do not teach) only to be told that appointments with teachers are not made in that way and that I needed to complete the carnet.

Le Bulletin Trimestriel(The Termly School Report)

A conseil de classe takes place at the end of each term when the class teachers meet. After this meeting, the school reports are sent to parents by post.

Marks and teachers’ comments appear for each subject as well as a comment by the headteacher or one of the deputies on the pupil’s work and attitude generally.

Le Cahier De Textes Or Agenda

Each pupil (under the instruction of the subject teacher) notes down homework which has been set in this, with the date by which it has to be completed. Parents can in this way inform themselves of what their child is doing at school and can help organise their work at home.

The Class Timetable

The day may begin and end at different times every day, depending on how many lessons a child has.

There may be free periods during the day when the pupil has no lessons. During these hours a child may work in the salle de permanence which is a supervised study room or the centre de documentations et d’informations (CDI) which is the school library.

Parents also have the option of allowing their children to leave the school premises when they do not have lessons or when their teacher is absent: they declare their wishes at the beginning of the school year and this is stated on their child’s cornet de correspondence. This explains why you see children of school age out of school during the school day, throughout the school year.

In my small town the majority of parents give their permission so that their children can go home when they do not have lessons.

The school timetable is often not the same every week and weeks are called Week A and Week B. This is due to half-classes being taught in science or language labs for example, when smaller groups are necessary for safety or teaching is more effective in smaller groups. Although parents find this confusing, pupils themselves get used to the idea that they have different lessons on alternate weeks.