This one-year transition between middle school and high school will be intended for students admitted to the second year of high school without having obtained their middle school certificate. It is to be tested at the start of the 2024 school year, then generalized in 2025.
They have not made as much noise as the level groups, but are not welcomed with much more enthusiasm by the unions. The preparatory-secondary classes, announced by Gabriel Attal in December when he was still Minister of National Education, must be tested in at least one high school per department at the start of the 2024 school year. They will welcome students admitted to general, technical or professional second year, but who will not have obtained the national brevet diploma, the tests for which are organized on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd July. Tested on a voluntary basis, this intermediate class between the third and second year must be generalized in 2025 – having obtained the brevet will then become a condition for accessing high school.
This new path, which does not consist of repeating the third year, nor of a regular second year, is presented as a second chance for students in difficulty. These preparatory classes aim, according to the ministry, to “consolidate the achievements” from college, from “prepare for the planned second year by familiarizing students with high school practices and methods” and of “confirm or better define the orientation project”. At the end of this year, students will be able to join the second year (in the establishment of their original assignment or the one where they did their preparatory class) or reorient themselves elsewhere.
But representatives of teachers, students or families fear a “social sorting” of students and a shaky organization. “We wonder if this is not a dead-end route to then move towards a forced direction”objects Grégoire Ensel, vice-president of the FCPE, the main parents’ organisation. While the brevet should become the sesame to move on to high school, he emphasises that, in the regulatory texts which govern the pilot phase of preparatory-secondary classes (a decree and an order), “There are no plans to retake the patent” to the whole class. In a FAQ from the Ministry of National Education, however, it is written that “THE“Preparatory-secondary students can register as independent candidates”.
The teachers’ union Snes-FSU also fears, in a press release, that this “prep” will be “a relegation path whose real objective is to push for a reorientation towards apprenticeship“. At the end of the year, students will be issued with a “certificate of completion of the preparatory cycle for the second year of secondary school”. The ministry explained to franceinfo that it will allow “to promote the student’s attendance, their investment in their studies and the progress made”. A certificate therefore, but not a diploma. The Snes-FSU is skeptical: “Will the certificate ultimately become a document indicating that some students have not reached a certain level?”
CertainHigh school representatives are also doubtful. Forcing struggling students to spend four years in high school instead of three amounts to “put it in their heads that school is not for them”estimated Gaspar Buzare, co-secretary general of the National High School Movement (MNL).
“Students will become discouraged and turn more quickly, out of frustration, to the world of work.”
Gaspar Buzare, co-secretary general of the MNL high school unionto franceinfo
Snalc, another secondary school teachers’ union, is less critical of this measure. “In principle, the idea of having a year to prepare” after college is “interesting”judges its president, Jean-Rémi Girard. “But the implementation could be botched, as is the case with level groups,” he anticipates however. On the side of Peep, the other main parents’ organization, the initiative is also judged “commendable”. “We allow students in difficulty to catch up, whether on fundamentals or working methods”rather than undergoing an orientation at the end of the 3rd year, judges its spokesperson Laurent Zameczkowski. He sees it as an alternative “less stigmatizing” And “more motivating” to repeat.
The fact remains that opening these preparatory-secondary classes poses a question of resources, as is often the case in National Education. At the start of the 2024 school year, 150 full-time equivalents will be allocated to the academies, to cover the deployment of 110 classes in total, the ministry assures franceinfo. “We have concerns about the generalization in 2025. How many classes will open? Where? With which teachers?”asks Jean-Rémi Girard, the president of Snalc. The ministry responds to franceinfo that it is still too early to answer these questions.
As the Snes-FSU points out, the number of students failing the brevet, and therefore likely to join these future classes, should also increase. This would be the logical consequence of the announced elimination of the “academic corrective”, i.e. the possibility for the rectorate to “raise the average of all candidates (…) to increase the success rates of an academy”explained the Director General of School Education (Dgesco), Edouard Geffray, to World. Gabriel Attal, who had called for the end of this system when he was Minister of Education, had himself considered that it could reduce the proportion of graduates. And therefore increase the number of students blocked at the entrance to high school.
For the president of Snalc, it is a safe bet that not all establishments will open a preparatory-secondary class at the start of the 2025 school year. Since the number of students who fail the brevet exam is generally small in number within an establishment, “they could logically be grouped by basin”he imagines. For some, “This can become complicated in terms of transport and distance” with the family home, fears Jean-Rémi Girard.
For Isabelle Vuillet, co-general secretary of CGT-Educ’action, these obstacles will even appear during the test phase: “In rural departments, student volunteers will potentially have to travel a lot.” The ministry assures that “the vast majority of prefigurative high schools have a boarding school” and “locally, local authorities (…) can be alerted by the rector of the need” to integrate the preparatory class for the second year “in planning transport for the students concerned”.
Concretely, students volunteering for the 2024-2025 year will be offered 27 hours of weekly lessons, including seven hours of“methodological and preparatory lessons for the rest of the course”as well as French, mathematics, history-geography and even science.
These hourly volumes “cannot overcome sometimes profound shortcomings” among these students who are grouped together precisely because of their difficulties, believes the Snes-FSU. And the content of the program also raises questions. The ministry’s service note explains that it must be “class specific” and designed “collectively at the institution level”. In short, there will be no national framework, as is the case for other classes. “We have no indication, no benchmark,” regrets Isabelle Vuillet.
“Colleagues are very worried because they will have to welcome the students in their own way.”
Isabelle Vuillet, co-general secretary of CGT-Educ’actionto franceinfo
While the ministry recommends a reduced class size of 25 students maximum, without making it an obligation, these classes also promise to be very heterogeneous. They will indeed be able to accommodate “group of future second year students from general and technological pathways as well as from vocational pathways”, is specified in the ministerial FAQ. Preparatory-secondary classes, level groups… Isabelle Vuillet fears “an accumulation of devices” which will “fail”. With this other risk: that “Teachers are losing their sense of purpose.”