High school students will know their marks for the baccalaureate specialty tests on Wednesday. For the first time since the reform, these tests took place in March. The teachers note a certain relaxation on the side of the students.
“I didn’t wake up, it happens to me from time to time, slips Mathis, 17, his face a little foggy when he arrives at his high school in Paris, when it is past noon. There is no one in class. A quarter of the class hasn’t come at all since the specialty tests. It’s a bit of a total release!” The teenager has accumulated a few failed classes since the baccalaureate specialty tests passed in mid-March. He is far from alone. “There is so much pressure before the bac. Suddenly, when there is no more pressure at all, we are in relaxation mode, we have the impression of being on vacation when there is still course”, adds a friend from the same establishment.
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These high school students will know on Wednesday April 12 their marks for the baccalaureate specialty tests, which represent a third of the final mark. These tests took place from March 20 to 22, for the first time since the reform of the baccalaureate instituted in 2019. There is indeed continuous assessment, which still counts for the baccalaureate, but the Parcoursup files are closed so the motivation is in free fall and it is not the philosophy test or the Grand oral, scheduled for mid-June, which will remobilize the students.
“We lose our students in March”
“The fact that it’s in March, it’s earlier than before, when it was at the end of May. It moved everything forward,” explains Yoan, professor of history and geography near Rouen. In his classes of 30 students, there are at least four or five absent from each class for a few weeks. “We observe a disinvestment. In fact, they do not see that they are preparing for higher education, they see that they are preparing for their baccalaureate. They have the impression that this is it, they are on vacation. They even wonder on the interest of working. We are a little surprised by the scale of the phenomenon this year!”
This disinvestment of the students, the heads of establishments also denounce it. This is because we are forced to remove too many courses to organize the exams, regrets Florence Delannoy, headmaster in Lille and academic manager of the SNPDEN union. “For the general public, there were two specialty tests, two days, let’s admit. Except that in fact, we put review days before, rest days after, we added harmonization days, days of corrections. The students are given I don’t know how many specific orals. This means that the teachers are at work, but they can no longer teach their students”.
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The students are on their own according to Florence Delannoy. “I put myself in the place of a second student, who has lessons from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. because all the other lessons have been canceled. Yes, he is disengaging, he has not don’t want to get up in the morning, and we can understand that.” With this baccalaureate reform, the Ministry ofEeducation wanted “reclaim the month of June”. “There, we are losing our students from the month of March” says the headteacher.
After the baccalaureate specialty tests, the release of some high school students – Report by Noémie Bonnin
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