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Hey everyone, sorry for the long wait for an update, I recently passed six hours of testing (more on that in a bit) and have been resting and catching up on homework. In this article, I will be going into more depth about the French school system, a topic that has been highly requested, more specifically about 3eme (9th grade). I'll be breaking down the basics and then giving my personal takeaway and experience. I hope you and enjoy and make sure to leave comments and suggestions if you want to hear more about a certain topic or are interested in guest blogging!
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*My school, Jean Sturm. The door on the right is where I enter every morning :). The building was used back when the Romans occupied Strasbourg.
So to begin, I'm just going to give a brief explanation of how the French school system is structured so you can have an understanding of the grades and some of the French words I will use throughout the article. In France, schooling starts at age 5, where you attend the maternelle (kindergarten) which can last multiple years. Then, elementary school begins, including CP (1st grade), CE1 (2nd grade), CE2 (3rd grade), CM1 (4th grade), and CM2 (5th grade). Next, you pass on to what is called collège (middle school, pronounced cole-eshj). Now, an important note to make is that French grades from 6th and up actually go backwards. The lower the grade number, the older you get. So, 6th grade is still 6th grade (sixième), cinquième (translated means 5th grade) is America's 7th grade, and so on and so forth. The complete list goes sixième, cinquième, quatrième, troisième (my grade), segonde, première, terminale (terminale is senior year, 12th grade). Now, these seven grades are split into two parts: the aforementioned collège (middle school) and the lycée (high school, pronounced lee-say). Normally, in the US, middle school lasts from about 6th grade to 8th grade and high school is four years: 9th-12th or freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. However, in France, collège is 6eme-3eme and lycée is just three years: 2nde through terminale.
Just to recap, I am currently in 9th grade (3eme), which is my last year of middle school in the French system. Now, for French students, 3eme is a big deal. After 3eme, you have to decide which lycée you want to attend, you have to essentially decide what type of professional field you want to go into, you pick what degree you want to get and you take the brevet. We'll start with the lycée.
*By the way, most French schools do not look like this!
In this sense, France is a lot like the USA: deciding on what high school to go to based off of many factors, like location, programs, activities, rank, etc. Now, I can't speak for the whole of France, but I will describe the choices I am facing here in Strasbourg. In Strasbourg, there are many, many schools, but there are three main options for middle school: Esplanade, Lucie Berger and the European School. Esplanade is your typical public school. Personally, I never attended it, but my brother does currently and many of my friends have or do. From what I hear, it is kind of a crazy place (kids smoking in the bathrooms, pigeons flying into classrooms, etc.) however it is still a respectable school, with 800 students and a 3/5 stars on letudiant.fr (a respectable school rating website).
Next, we have Lucie Berger. Lucie Berger is the school my brother and I both attended when we first arrived. It is a private school with a good English program. Personally, I have a lot more to say about it, but I'll leave that for another article ;). It is rated a 9.5/10 on kelprof.com. Finally, there's the European school. This school is mainly for the children of diplomats, as Strasbourg is where the Council of Europe meets sometimes and there are many consulates and diplomats working here. The European school (again, from what I've heard) follows more of an American/British structure in terms of grading and the way of learning. We did try to get in multiple times, however we were not in priority (which still doesn't make sense to me, but whatever) and neither my brother, nor myself have been there. Funnily enough, I could not find a rating however you are welcome to Google it (It's not really relevant to this article).
So, as I mentioned, both my brother and I began at Lucie Berger. I continued there (it finishes in 5eme) but my brother transferred to Esplanade after encountering some difficulties (like I said, this topic deserves its own article). Luckily, he is much happier there and the school seems to be a better fit for him personally. Now, coming back to the schooling options. For high school there are, again, three main options: the European School, Pontonniers and Jean Sturm (the sister school to Lucie Berger). Before I break these schools down, I need to explain a little about degree options in France.
*Lucie Berger, the sister school to Jean Sturm and the building I used to go to for 6eme and 5eme. (There's an awesome bakery around the corner!)
In France, the general degree most students work for for graduating high school is called the Bac (the baccalaureate). This degree allows them to work and pursue studies in France (I believe this includes Europe as well, however I'm not completely sure). However, as most children in Strasbourg speak more than one language, there are a few different versions of this Bac (from what I understand). There is the OIB, which is the English addition to the normal Bac (there may also be a German version, but again, I don't know for sure.). Finally, there is the International Baccalaureate (IB) which is international and also offered in many different countries (including the US), making it easier for students to transfer all around the globe for studies and work. So now I will break down the high schools and the types of degrees they offer, as well as my application process.
Obviously, the European School is just the continuation of the middle school (they actually have all the grades, I believe) and it's not particularly important for this article. Next, Pontonniers. Pontonniers (pronounced pone-tone-yay) is one of the highest ranking high schools in the region (5/5 on college-lycee.com) and is for 2nde through terminale. Each year, many students apply for one of their three sections: French, English or German. Now, I feel it's important to note here that (European School aside) any program that is called "English" or "German" will never fully be just that language. There are still normal French classes as well as many subjects like math and science that are conducted in French. It simply means that you are working towards that speciality on your degree and you will have one to three classes in that language (for example, English Language Arts and World History might be in English and the rest of your classes in French). I did apply for the English section at Pontonniers, more commonly referred to as Ponto, but more on that later.
*Lycée de Pontonniers, which literally looks like a Hogwarts castle.
Finally, there is Jean Sturm, the campus I am currently at. Sturm hosts students from 4eme all the way to terminale. However, once you graduate 3eme, you do have multiple choices. Yes, you can apply for another high school like Ponto or a local French lycée, but if you choose to stay at Sturm, you have two options. Number one, you enter into what is called "seconde générale"(pronounced se-goned shje-ner-all), or General 10th Grade. This is for the French kids and will prepare you to take the Bac Français. The second option is to enter their IB program. With the IB program, you have many more classes in English once you join, and many more choices too. For example, you can choose whether to take chemistry in English or physics in French, Psychology in English or Economics in French, and two different types of math (one in each language.) Now, you may notice I use the words "choose" and "or". That's right: starting from 2nde in France you already start making choices for what field of studies you want to go into.
For example, if you really want to be a chemist, you can drop certain classes in favor of ones more targeted at your preferred field. It is a lot of stress and often uncertainty to put this huge decision on the shoulders of 14 and 15 year olds, decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. You can either see this system as beneficial or not. On the one hand, it prepares students better for their chosen field of studies and teaches them responsibility from earlier on. However, it is also a lot of stress for 3eme students, especially if you're not sure in what direction you want to go in. This is where the stages (pronounced sta-shjes) come in.
As I've mentioned, 3eme is a big year for students. Another partly more exciting aspect of the year comes with the stages d'observation (sta-shjes dobe-serva-see-own). Students have the opportunity to send applications to a company or business they are interested in and, if accepted, will go for one week and shadow a worker in that field, observing what they do in a day and helping out with parts of the business to see how it works. The point of this work experience is to give students the opportunity to explore areas of work they're interested in and see if it is really something they want to do in real life, since sometimes you can think you want to do something, but in reality it ends up being different than expected. Personally, I think this is a really cool and smart aspect of the French program, especially since they make students decide on a direction so young. It helps get a good perspective, and if you do decide you don't like it, you aren't limited to just one stage. You can do more in the summer or in 2nde as well. The second reason students do stages is for the brevet, but I'll explain that in part 2.
For me, the stages didn't exactly go as planned due to COVID this year, which is kind of a disappointment. At first, I wanted to shadow a lawyer, but I was worried about the French level so instead I applied to the SPA (animal shelter) just because I thought it could be fun. After, I also gave my application to a pharmacy, as one of my friends had applied there and gotten in, but their stage got canceled so they thought I might benefit from at least going somewhere. When both these opportunities didn't work out because of the pandemic, I sent out a dozen emails to different lawyers (fun fact: lawyers in French are called "avocats" ((pronounced ah-voe-ka)), or as my dad likes to say, "Avo Cats!") working in Strasbourg, but I only received one rejection and no other responses and the stage is in two weeks, with paperwork due a few days ago. This year, they are making an exception and students who were unable to secure a stage will remain at school for the week (although they still haven't told us what exactly we are going to do.).
*Translated this reads: 5 days, age 14 and up, 1 convention, 30 to 35 hours maximum per week, between 6 and 20 hours maximum (I'm guessing per day?), stage as a group or individual, and civil responsibility=boss of the building/business.
So, in a nutshell, that's (the beginning of) what 3eme life in France is like. There's a lot of moving pieces, decisions, paperwork and stress. Ultimately, I feel like the French system has a good foundation and good ideas, however the one thing they fail to see is the student's stress and mental health levels. In Part 2, I'll talk more about the brevet, which is quite a big subject as well as the school hours, homework and anything else I can think of (maybe I'll talk more specifically about what Jean Sturm offers).
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I hope this was informative and you enjoyed learning about the French system. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to shoot me a message or leave a comment. If you enjoy reading more content about my school life/life in France be sure to let me know so I can write more about it and finally, if you're interested in guest blogging be sure to let me know! There will be another one coming out later this month so keep your eyes peeled! Have a wonderful weekend!
Loreleixx
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