Our secondary school is composed of three hundred pupils and the high school is composed of one thousand. The building is old; it is more than fifty years-old.

School is compulsory until age sixteen in France. There are four grades at the secondary school: “6éme / 5ème / 4ème and 3ème” or sixth, fifth, fourth and third. In France, our grade-levels count down, not up. Therefore, students work their way from sixth grade to first grade, after which is the “Terminale” grade, or the last grade before graduation from high school. The students participating in the Global Classroom Initiative project are in 3rd grade, and, therefore, are 14 and 15 years old.

There are usually twenty-five pupils per class and the classrooms are about sixty square meters.

There are rules but we can wear what we like, except inappropriate clothing.

In the morning, we work from eight o’clock to midday and in the afternoon, from half past one to half past five, but we often finish at half past three.

The lessons last fifty-five minutes and we don’t go to school on Wednesdays or weekends.

In class, we listen, ask questions and write lessons. The subjects are French, history and geography, math, biology, Spanish, English, art, music, physics, technology, two hours of PE. The other languages studied are Italian, Russian, German and Latin. Some pupils find math and physics difficult.

There is a place at school called "vie scolaire" or school life where young adults solve school problems, and help the pupils who find themselves in difficulty.

Most of us eat at the cafeteria once a week at 12:3O; the food isn’t very varied.

After school, pupils do their homework, some for thirty minutes, others for an hour and a half. Lessons are very long to learn and we regularly have tests. We think we have too much homework and too many lessons especially in the history and math classes.

It is our last year at the secondary school and at the end of the year, we will have a written exam called the "BEPC" in French, math, and history.

website: http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/eaux-claires/