Worrying little statistic

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Of 50 pupils completing the 3me at a local school only 5 reached the necessary level to proceed to 2me.
The remaining 45 will either retake the year or go to lyce professionnel.

[Miki]

That really is a worrying percentage. Do you know if the school has always had a record so poor, or is it a recent drop in pass rates for going on to 2me.

Perhaps it is an area where "manual" trades are more required than "white collar" jobs? and the pupils have no "want" to do any more than get in to Lyce Pro? (those that don't want to re-double that is, of course)

Miki

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Nationally in 2000 57% went through to 2me, 26% to BEP/CAP. This would equate to 28 going to lyce from a class of 50, rather more than 5.

[Teamedup]

You haven't even mentioned if these kids have already resat once or twice already.

Very sad to see these stats......as always!

[Mistral]

This does seem a bit low but maybe, as Miki says, you are in an area where lycée pro training is seen as more useful. You'd need to look at the stats for the last few years and the brevet results. The local LEP might have training that leads straight to jobs in the area (we have one that leads straight to working in the oil rafineries)

Of the pupils who go to 2nde GT, around 25% will either be reorientated at the end of the year or have to retake it.

My school is in the oppsosite position. The headmistress is so worried about not having too many redoublements that she will do almost anything to avoid it including allowing pupils who really will not be able to cope (I'm talking about grades of 4-6 in French, English AND maths) to go on to lycée GT. Out of 150 3emes we usually have 1 or 2 redoublants.The amount who find themselves completely lost by the end of the first term and then just hang around waiting for the year to end so they can go to lycée pro is very sad.

[Dick Smith]

I think Miki's answer may be correct - if not, then such figures would surely lead to investigation, and in the nature of things organisations don't normally put themselves in line for that if they can help it.

There has been a related issue in the UK where two opposing pressures apply - the move towards vocational education and the league tables for exam performance. Schools with 'poor' exam performance may actually be doing something more relevant and useful for their pupils (in the way of apprenticeships or vocational qualifications, work experience) than those who push them into large numbers of largely irrelevant academic exams, but may find themselves labelled as 'failing' as a result. If French schools could act in the same way and not be criticised for it, I would think that to be a very positive step.

[Mistral]

Dick, I think that French schools can more easily encourage pupils to into vocational training and not be critisised. Not so much because vocational training has a better press here but more that parents are less interested in league tables and stats. I was reading a magazine about how to analyze your college in the Paris area recently and they gave the brevet results and the percentages of pupils going to lycée pro, but that's the first time I've ever seen anything like it and, most importantly it was for parents in Paris.

Colleges can't push pupils into more academic exams than others  because there is only the brevet and everybody takes that.

 

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Thank you for your interest. My long reply to Miki and the subsequent discussion got lost in the software changeover.

Lycée Pro is usually farming and unless the kid stands to inherit a business which is a recipe for success in its lifetim it is pretty much a dumping ground; most smart farmers prefer their kids to get what is perceived as a "proper" education even if they will be working on the farm as soon as they've finished school.

I don't think that this is necessarily true of the "métiers de bâtiment" lycée, as there is a strong demand for qualified artisans (albeit at the minimum wage, but what isn't?) but no one from round here goes there or has been there in the last twenty plus years as far as I have been able to discover.

Intrigued by Mistral's comment about Brevet results, no one here thinks that they are of any interest whatsoever?

The year's results were hopefully the bottom of a downhill slide over the last ten years or more; the school has reacted by introducing a rudimentary streaming system, giving the best teachers to the better half of the pupils... the parents of the worse pupils are not thrilled but it is hoped that this will dramatically improve results.

In previous years even the cream of this collège have often floundered at the lycée when they did get there.

I'm pretty sure that the figures haven't led to investigations by anyone outside the school, except by parents of younger children who may be able to provide a valid reason for their children going straight to the lycée in the next department instead.

It is my understanding that French teachers in collège teach the National Curriculum (or don't bother); they don't have the option of teaching anything else.