Ok, so, our school system is super different from yours, so let me break it down. We basically have 14 years of school total. We start at age four in "Maternelle" (M1 and M2), then move to another building called "Primaire" for five years (P1 to P5). In those years, you just have one teacher for everything.
Then we move to a third building for "Secondaire," which is seven years long (S1 to S7). That's when things change: you get a bunch of different professors for every subject, and you have to switch classrooms every period.
Each period is exactly 45 minutes long, and the timetable is usually a grid of 9 periods a day. The cool part is that everyone's schedule is different—it's not like the whole school follows the same one. You get these "free periods" (basically gaps in your timetable) where you don't have a class. You can just hang out, go to the cafeteria, or catch up on homework. Everyone gets at least one free period a day, so they have time to eat lunch!
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are our "long days" because the slots are usually packed until the 9th period. Tuesday is our "short day" since we usually finish after the 5th period and get to head home early.
The younger kids in Maternelle and Primaire have it a bit different—they don't really have a "timetable" with periods; they just stay in class from 8:45 to 16:30. Their long days are Monday and Wednesday, and they get three short days (Tue/Thu/Fri).
Oh, and get this—some people actually choose to take extra elective periods just to learn more. They end up staying until the 7th period on Tuesdays while the rest of us leave early. Totally wild, right? :]
As you get closer to the end of school, they give you way more free slots in your timetable to give you a break and let you study for the "Bac" (the Baccalaureate). And yeah, you can skip a grade if you're super smart or repeat a year if you fail.
Let's not forget to mention that our timetables stay the same for the whole year until the next one, only if a teacher isn't here, so you get a free period if they're not replaced. :]
It's definitely a weird system, but hopefully, that makes more sense now! :]
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My school
Non-Fictionhere we talk about my weird school, because if I do it in my comment section, my phone will die. :] P.S. The cover of this book is a REAL picture from our school. Now that I look at it, it's really similar to a prison...
