In Val-de-Marne, a school confused by the succession of ministers

Monday morning. Tom, a pupil in sixth at the Pierre-Brossolette college in Perreux-sur-Marne, in the Paris region, goes to the board to tell, in a few sentences, the beginning of the adventures of Bilbo Le Hobbit. He is part of a group of need for 21 students – two thirds of a class – made up last year by the management team at the request of the Ministry of National Education. In this downtown establishment with few scholarship students, the initiative is widely acclaimed. Only downside: the educational staff had to do quickly, too quickly, to translate it on the ground. While the level groups had been mentioned in December 2023 by Gabriel Attal, the minister of the time, as part of his reform of the “shock of knowledge”, the official texts only released until April 2024. “I had to redo my lessons during the summer,” said Madeleine Walesch, the French professor of Tom.

“The meeting times with the teaching teams were very short,” deplores the principal, Wilfried Chapelain, from his large circular office placed not far from the entrance hall. The team could not provide for common programming, nor think about the level of students in the process of year. The design of time jobs was even more complicated than usual, the 150 college students selected to follow French and math lessons at the same time. “We realized that the fifth sports sessions had to be wedged on the same niche,” explains the forties. In order to release hours for these need groups, the college also had to cut on those devoted to sessions in small groups in science or languages. “If we had had more time, we could have organized to delete less hours in the injured disciplines,” says the principal. The reform was set up for forced march, that is why many colleges could not apply it. According to an SNES*survey, only 26 % of them set up level groups as they were thought.

A consequence, among others, of the parade at the head of the Ministry of National Education. In 2024, Nicole Belloubet softens the application of “levels of levels”, leaving the school heads to decide. She also postpones the reform of the initial training of teachers, whose Prime Minister François Bayrou has just announced the restart. In early 2025, Elisabeth Borne, newly named, speaks of a reorientation of the “shock of knowledge”, without precision, and returned to the compulsory patent to enter high school. What about the next school year? Suspense.

Lack of evaluations

At the Pierre-Brossolette college, the following year was prepared the following year. However, it happens more and more often that the official texts containing the directives for the next school year are communicated very late. Wilfried Chapelain, the principal, would also like to have a return to previous reforms. The time of support in French and math that he implemented last year with his team for students in the sixth and fifth on the deposit of the ministry was deleted the following year, without explanation or evaluation. “Each government wants to leave its mark; Ministers often deconstruct the reforms of their predecessor, ”observes Hugues Poirier, principal of a college in disadvantaged zone and union representative. Not to mention the glaring lack of evaluation culture in France.

Autonomy request

Rather than new measures to become precarious, the heads of school continues to claim more autonomy, to act according to their environment and their situation. Over the years, the few overtime hours allocated in a differentiated way to each college and high school to set up specific projects have been nibbled. “This is the problem of national reforms, judge Wilfried Chapelain. You cannot work in the same way everywhere in France. In her class, Catherine Delisle, professor of French, stands out of the tumult. For this teacher close to retirement, it does not matter that the discourse of national education varies from year to year, she has always done “in her sauce”. “I never wanted to mix language lessons and those of literature as we were asked,” she says. Sometimes grammar and combination are not acquired in the third class. That day, his students must tell the story of Roland and his uncle Charlemagne, using the sustained vocabulary of this 12th century text. Patience and passion: two qualities that the teaching world more than ever needs in the face of political adversity.

* Launched in November 2024 with teachers.