A guide to French secondary school : the lycee
Guillemette Rony ?? Expat in France Founder
I help expatriates in France to sort out their main French administration processes and understand French culture to enjoy their new home.
Today is la rentrée in France and if it is your child first day at school in France, you may wonder how the French education system works. This French secondary school guide will give you some keys to this new world, and will help you, help your teenager!
Whether you are registering your child in a public or private French school, the curricular is national as well as the baccalaureate exam.If you have children between 15 and 18 years old, you will be interested in reading this article until the end as I will explain into details the secondary school system; how it is organised and the enrolment process.
Once pupils reach lycee, they have three years before they take the famous Baccalaureate (or “Bac”) exam. It is the cornerstone of the French school system.
- First-year of secondary school: Seconde
- Second-year of secondary school: Première
- Last and third year of secondary school: Terminale
A the end of the first year of secondary school, teenagers should decide whether they go to the general section (choice between 3 options) or a more technological section (choice between 8 sections).
Secondary school sections
The general route
The general option is a more academic choice, focusing on general knowledge and less on applied one. This section is perfect for scholastic students that don’t know what they want to study later on. Being a very broad education, it keeps their options open to both technical studies and very selective universities or business schools.
Out of their generation, 79,7% of the teenagers graduated from the Bac in 2019. And from the ones that took the exam the overall rate is 88,1% on the first round (in June). There is a second round in September for some students that had an average between 8 and 10 over 20.
Out of the 79,7% of the teenagers, 42,5% of the secondary students chose the general section in 2018 according to INSEE, the French National statistics institute.
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You will find out more about how the school day is organised or the school year calendar in France.
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