Moyenne -results

[mitsi]

My daughter is at our local college, which doesn't have a very good reputation. She comes home from school concerned that she is in a class full of idiots. Not surprising to us, she is the top of her class with a moyenne of just under 17.  My question is, is the mark good because everyone else is so bad - i.e the lessons are dumbed down, or would this mark be the same across France no matter which school she was in?

[MerveilN]

Hi,

this is a quite difficult question in fact. Normally the teachers have to follow a strictly defined schedule to prepare the kinds for the "brevet de college" as well as for the "baccalaureat". these are national exams which means that the whole country has the same exams at the same time. So teachers should not "dumb down" lessons in order to rise the classes grade point average. But I heard that this can depend on the teacher...

To get a better idea if this is the case or not you should maybe gather some information about her classmates grades. If they're as "idiot" as she says and get good grades you have the answer...

[NormanH]

There is certainly a syndrome of 'relief marking' when a teacher gives an over-estimate of the quality of a good student after wading through reams of rubbish.

The problem is to know whether this 17 is in comparison with the rest of the class, or real.  This is important because it will be somebody else who marks the Bac later on.

[Panda]

Hello

I sadly think that your daughters mark is relation to the other students not the year across the country.  My son was top of his class in everything in his village school which did have it's share of less able students shall we say.  When we moved to the Alps I was told he was miles behind in lots of subjects which came as a shock and he had to do extra work after school.  His teacher was staright out of Paris and so she told me her standards were higher than in the sticks!

P

[mitsi]

Thanks for all the replies. It's a difficult one. certainly her Primary schooling was to a much higher standard than most as the teacher was known to be old school and strict. All the kids that have gone on to college from her, were well ahead of all the others (not just the English kids). Now that the youngest is there with a new teacher I can already see the difference - she is struggling and they are well behind where they should be.

I think it just confirms for us another reason to move back to the UK.