Lycée choices in France?

[workwoes123]

Bit of a niche question but I want to ask anon, and I know there are a lot of French mamans on here.

DS1 is in 3 eme, so doing his brevet this year and making a choice for lycée next year. Neither DH nor I are french, so this whole process is pretty opaque atm. DH is a teacher so has some insight, but he’s in an OIB school where all kids go on to do bac general or get punted elsewhere.

DS is in a good collège and we live on the doorstep of one of the best lycées in our city. It’s academic (prépa vers grand école is what they are focused on) and known to be intense. But the expectation has always been that DS will go there, probably to do a bac générale, science or language spécialités. After that it’s a bit hazy - he’s always says he wants to go to the U.K. for uni, but post Brexit who knows.

This morning he declared he wants to go to a lycée pro and do mechanics. I don’t think he has any real desire to be a mechanic (he’s been watching a lot of top gear lately). The issue for me is that I don’t really understand the longer term implications if he chose this rather than bac général. My vague Understanding is that he’d find it impossible to move back “up” into a more academic path. Plus, I have to say my french friends talk about lycée pro in terms of horror: is this just pure snobbery or a genuine concern for the future of their children? I can’t tell.

DS is clever but a bit disorganised / lazy. No concerns from his teachers, his moyenne is around 16, his friends are lovely kids (and I suspect they will all be aiming for générale).

I think it would be hard to go back to a Bac Générale. I know my friend's son had enough of the hothouse Lyvée our dcs were in and did a Bac STMG; three yeas later he was admitted into the IUT to do a course that all his Lycée Générale friends were turned down for as their Bac wasn't technical enough.
Maybe that might be a mid-way option?

If your son is getting MG of around 16 in a lycée that marks harshly, then yes it would be a shame for him to move to Bac pro.

Where might he apply for university? If the UK, then he would certainly need to continue with the Bac général (and choose his spés with his eventual degree course in mind.)

Moving from a Bac pro into a more acedemic stream is possible (to a limit), but more difficult. I don't think you could move from a bac pro into a grand école though.

The French can be very snobby about this. Good kids from good back grounds should do a bac general then prepa then grand école. Anything else is somehow seen as a failure. But that is a hard route. Lycée is bad enough, but prépa is brutal. And there is no guarentee that you will pass the concours at the end. There is always the option of a FAC but that isn't seen as being a great route unless you are looking at medicine or law.

A bac pro can lead to a BTS and then a good career. Unless you can get into one of the very good grand ecoles then earning potential from the trades can be higher. It is certainly a more transferable skill.

I think we all tend to push our kids to work up to their absolute acedemic potential, but I don't think this is always the right choice.

For info I have 3DDs. One went to a "grand ecole" then decided to reconvert to a trade and is now a qualified refrigeration technicien. She has just landed a good job. Her fellow students from the grand ecole are either still studying or doing jobs on SMIC.

The second went through prepa (which I would only recommend for the very toughest and cleverest kids) and is now at VET school.

DD3 is in seconde generale.

Sorry I meant to tag you @workwoes123

My son moved out of college so do his 3ème in a lycée pro - we were told that it wouldn't be possible to move back into a normal Bac Générale parcours after this, it's either Bac Pro or Apprentissage. There is indeed a lot of snobbery attached to schooling in France but the academic route isn't for all children (it was for DD but not for DS).
A Bac Pro can lead to à BTS which is an excellent qualification.

What is a BTS? And I have heard that there are new Lycée Technos opening up - what are they for?

Thing is, if we were in the UK he would just go to Uni. Unless something went horribly wrong, he'd likely get the grades to go to a decent Uni to do engineering or computer science or biology or languages or whatever. And then - at 22 - he'd go and do whatever he actually wanted to do, but with a degree behind him. Here, it seems that if he gets it wrong when he's 13, he's marked for life! Which is just crazy.

I can see why French parents get very antsy about it, snobbery aside.

BTS is a Brevet de technicien supérieur. It is a 2 year qualification taken after the bac. It can then lead on to a degree (you enter into either the second or third year depending on your results)

It is a qualification which is highly thought of in not only the trades, but also commerce, laboratories etc. It covers a huge range of subjects. Some are done through a lycée professionnel , some through the chamber of commerce at a CMA , with a contract so you work 2 weeks and do one weeks studying.

My DDs went through a good Lycée, but in the provinces rather than Paris. Far more people do a BTS here than a licence, and there are only a handful that go to prepa.

It doesn't sound as though your DS would struggle academically with the Bac Général. If his decision is sudden, I'm wondering if something else is worrying him about the Lycée, maybe he's heard of bullying or is worried about the anticipated workload.
The French system is indeed very academic and there is a lot of competition between parents.
There is lots of information out there (don't know what your French is like), but maybe you could approach the school to talk you through it.
Whatever he chooses, expect UK universities not to understand (they know the IB, but are not so good about others).
And if he doesn't end up at Uni in the UK, lots of EU Countries now offer courses fully taught in English.

Did you get the answers your looking for @workwoes123 ? One option would be to see if your son's school has a psychologue de l'education nationale. I think they're in most of not all public collèges and lycées (should probably know that as it's DH's job...). If not you could ask for an appointment at the local CIO. Now there's a good chance they won't know about passerelles to get to a UK uni but they're are definitely routes that exist between less traditional studies and higher education. If you have someone worth their salt they should be able to both your son in his decision for the best type of course for him and also how to get where he wants from there. I know DH has meetings in the school with students and their parents and this also takes place at the CIO. Might rather depend on your level of French though