Class equivalents in French Lycée and Collège

Dear Readers,

Many ex-pats move over to France every year with their families. Getting their children into the right school year is one very important thing every family has to do. So, in this article, we’ll be taking a look at how the French education system is organised.

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As you can see in the diagram, students go into 6ème at the age of 11, straight after primary school. They are now in collège (also known as the ‘premier cycle’). They will go through 5ème and 4ème before going into 3ème where they’ll pass the brevet at the end of the year. Their year average in 3ème will decide whether or not they’ll go through to lycée. The brevet doesn’t decide whether a student passes through to lycée, the decision is already made around 3 weeks before the student even enters the exam hall. To read more about collège and its subjects, click here.

After collège, lycée is reached and the student will have to decide whether they’ll take a lycée professionel course or go for the lycée général et technologique which is chosen by the vast majority of students. After the first year of lycée, 2nde, the student passes into 1ère. Some BAC exams are done in this school year but it depends on what the student has picked (S, ES, L, STG…). It is recommended to keep an eye on Onisep.fr for further changes to the lycée curriculum and exams. You can read more about lycée if you click here and learn about the lycée reform and its consequences by clicking here.

Article by The Editor