A student who did the PYP or MYP abroad and returns to France arrives in a system that does not ask for the same things. They are often good, curious, confident orally and in English. And yet their first marks in maths or French disappoint, sometimes sharply. It is not a question of level. It is a question of expectations, and it is handled subject by subject.
I see these students every year, and the pattern is almost always the same: the knowledge is there, the expected form is not.
In maths: proof, hand calculation and pace
This is the subject where the gap shows fastest. In France, from middle school and especially in lycée, a correct answer is not enough: it must be justified step by step in precise written form. A student who learnt to explore, model and use a graphing calculator discovers they are asked to write a complete proof and calculate by hand.
Calculating without a calculator now counts in the exam. Since June 2026, all students in première (the penultimate year) sit an early maths exam lasting two hours, without a calculator, with a first part of calculations and multiple-choice questions on core skills, then exercises. It has a coefficient of 2. A student arriving in seconde from the MYP therefore has one year to build reflexes their classmates have practised since middle school.
The syllabus itself may have gaps, depending on chapters covered before. In the penultimate-year maths specialism, the French programme covers in particular sequences, quadratics, differentiation, the exponential function, the dot product and conditional probability; in the final year, proof by induction, limits, the logarithm, integration and 3D geometry. The right move is a precise assessment on arrival, chapter by chapter, rather than waiting for the first bad marks. I also discuss this in My child is struggling with maths at a bilingual school.
In French: commentary, essay and the penultimate-year exam
French is the second subject where the gap widens. The baccalauréat includes an early French exam at the end of première, written and oral, built on highly codified exercises: the text commentary (commentaire), the essay (dissertation), the line-by-line oral explanation. A student who studied literature in the MYP can read and analyse, but does not know these formats or the analytical vocabulary markers expect.
For a student whose written French has been weakened by years of English-medium teaching, spelling and syntax also need work, as they weigh in every script.
In history-geography, science and philosophy
In history-geography, the student has to learn to write a structured composition and analyse a document following precise methods, and to know chronological landmarks the French syllabus takes for granted. In physics-chemistry, the same written-reasoning demands as in maths apply. In the final year, philosophy is an entirely new exercise for most students coming from the IB; those who started the Diploma Programme may have approached its spirit in Theory of Knowledge.
What is at stake in the baccalauréat. At the end of première: the early French exam and, since 2026, the early maths exam. In the final year: the two specialisms, philosophy and the Grand oral. Continuous assessment also counts, from première. A student arriving in seconde therefore has one year to catch up, not three.
When to return, and how to prepare the move
The earlier the return, the easier it is. In the first years of middle school, the student has time to learn French methods without exam pressure. In seconde, it is still possible, with real work in the first year. Beyond that, it is often better to finish the IB track, unless there is a very specific plan, as the article IB or French baccalaureate shows. To choose the entry year, see also French school years vs UK years, US grades and the IB.
At Carmine, we choose the year and the school with the family, and prepare entrance tests. For maths, I assess chapter by chapter and take the student in private lessons to build the French method before marks slip.