2023-10-05 16:00:00
“Putting the emphasis on fundamental knowledge” is Gabriel Attal’s objective. Thursday October 5, on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day, he explained that he wanted to revise the cyclical system of middle school in favor of “level groups” in maths and French.
In front of students and teachers, it was on the esplanade of the François Mitterrand National Library that the Minister of Education officially proposed the idea: “forming groups of levels” in maths and French, rather than teaching them “by class”. In doing so, he hopes to be able to compensate for the heterogeneity of classes by allowing both the best students to aim for excellence, and the least good students to catch up.
To think about this, he created a “Knowledge Requirements Mission”, which will “develop the strategy” to “raise the level of our school”. As reported by AFP, this commission will be formed by experts and senior officials from National Education, bringing together professors, rectors and inspectors. It will carry out “a very large number of hearings” and “render its conclusions within eight weeks, i.e. at the very beginning of December”, for “a first implementation from the next school year” in September 2024, explained Gabriel Attal.
The mission will address “the programs, their contents and their organization”. “If it is necessary to revise them, adapt them, change them, we will do it,” assured the minister.
“The approach that I am launching will make it possible (…) to arbitrate a certain number of debates which last: should we maintain the organization in cycles or return to sequencing by year and by class? Should we maintain, in particular at middle school, the principle of very heterogeneous classes or extending reflection by level, as we are experimenting with the new (class of) 6ᵉ this year?”, he explained.
“Should we not think, at least for these fundamental subjects, about a more modular organization of the college, about an organization for these subjects by groups of skills or levels?”, continued the minister, also mentioning the idea of “success internships” during the summer for students in difficulty.
The minister also announced the launch, “from next week”, of a “consultation” of all teachers on “the priorities and actions” to be put in place to “make this clash of knowledge a reality”.
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