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The Grading System

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The Grading System
A system that focuses on qualifications French high schools prepare students for a
battery of exams administered by the university system called the Baccalaureat or BAC.
There are several versions of these exams. Just under 80% of students who take the
exams pass them, but they represent only about 61% of their age group, because 39%
have opted for lower qualifications following orientation with a counsellor, or have
attained no qualification. Among the 61% who get a BAC, just under half (28.5% of the
age group) have studied for a degree which will allow them to enter professional life
directly (vocational, technical and professional BACs), most often because they are not
university material. The other half of these BAC recipients (32.4% of the age group)
have obtained a general BAC, far more difficult academically, in one of three branches:
scientific, literary and economic/social studies. Over 80% of those who take this exam
pass it due to prior streaming and selection. The exam includes separate tests, each
several hours long, in every subject area studied (please see "academic program"
below). Scores are multiplied by coefficients, then added and averaged to get the overall
score which must be above 10 out of 20 to pass. (see "grading system" below) (for
example, on the literary Bac, French and Philosophy scores are each multiplied by 7
while science scores are multiplied by 2. In contrast, on the scientific Bac, Math scores
are multiplied by 7, science scores by 6 and French by 4.) A very heavy academic
program
Whichever branch college-bound students opt for, all face a class schedule in high
school with 28 hours MINIMUM of obligatory classes weekly in French, Mathematics,
Physics and Chemistry, Earth and Life Science, History and Geography, Physical
Education, one foreign language, PLUS extra classes in Economics and Social
Sciences, Extra math and science, or extra foreign languages, depending on their
branch, as well as optional classes like music, dance, theatre, art, etc. exams (as
opposed to vocational-technical high schools that prepare students for easier exams). All
students have at least 8 subjects a week; many take options which never "lighten" one’s
class load, but only add to it. Some may thus have as much as 36-42 hours of class a
week (see next section). In their senior year, all students are additionally required to take
Philosophy. Compared with a general American high school, these classes demand
much more of these students in terms of memory work, analysis and synthesis ability,
reasoning, organisation, quantity and quality of homework, and writing skills. Indeed,
with school from 8 to 6 four days a week and half days on Wednesdays and Saturdays

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with several hours of homework every night, students who manage to do the work well
deserve enormous credit. The material is studied here in greater depth, much more like
the work of university students. As a consequence, the course work itself can easily be
considered as honors in every year and AP quality in much of the junior year.
Academically oriented courses in the final year are all AP level or higher. Our school
profile
Our school is designed for students who are bilingual, college-bound students (over 98%
go on to university), often from families that come from abroad or have lived abroad.
Language ability and a desire to prepare for the general BAC described above (that
opens the door to university) are the only criteria for entry, but it requires substantial
extra time and effort to succeed here, which discourages many candidates. Students
take all the usual, required classes in French (see the list above) but also take extra
History/Geography and Language/ Literature classes in one of six languages we run
here (English, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic). This adds 6 to 10
hours of honors (10th grade) and then AP level work (11th and 12th grades) to the
student’s weekly schedule (6 in language and literature and 0-4 in history, depending on
whether the student does "OIB"; please see below) to help them progress and maintain
their language level in a French environment. Students who additionally choose to take
other options can end up with 36 to 42 hours of class a week. We have four levels for
each language: level one is for students studying them as a foreign language, level two
is for students who can communicate somewhat fluently in the section language, level
three is for bilingual students who still need to perfect their knowledge of the target
language, and level four is for students who are fully bilingual students with substantial
mastery of the target language. Our students take British exams at the end of the year to
validate their level and do better than the British national average on the tests.
International Exams
The "Option Internationale Baccalaureat" or International High School Graduation
Exams (OIB exams) take place in May each year. The OIB was created by the French
Ministry of Education in collaboration with Cambridge University for bilingual high school
students like those in our school. It aims at building a rich curriculum through teaching
different languages and cultures within the context of the academic program of the
French BAC. Variants of the OIB exist in a variety of languages. (N.B. There is no
connection between the OIB and the IB (International Baccalauréat). The latter is
overseen by the BAC of Geneva and, unlike the OIB, does not test a fully bilingual
culture.) Characteristics of the OIB
1. The OIB is an option and not a branch of study and is therefore open to students
enrolled in the three branches of the general BAC. It means preparing for these exams

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 The Grading System A system that focuses on qualifications French high schools prepare students for a battery of exams administered by the university system called the Baccalaureat or BAC. There are several versions of these exams. Just under 80% of students who take the exams pass them, but they represent only about 61% of their age group, because 39% have opted for lower qualifications following orientation with a counsellor, or have attained no qualification. Among the 61% who get a BAC, just under half (28.5% of the age group) have studied for a degree which will allow them to enter professional life directly (vocational, technical and professional BACs), most often because they are not university material. The other half of these BAC recipients (32.4% of the age group) have obtained a general BAC, far more difficult academically, in one of three branches: scientific, literary and economic/social studies. Over 80% of those who take this exam pass it due to prior streaming and selection. The exam includes separate tests, each several hours long, in every subject area studied (please see "academic program" below). Scores are multiplied by coefficients, then added and averaged to get the overall score which must be above 10 out of 20 to pass. (see "grading system" below) (for example, on the literary Bac, French and Philosophy scores are each multiplied by 7 while science scores are multiplied by 2. In contrast, on the scientific Bac, Math scores are multiplied by 7, sci ...
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