The French School System

I don't know much about the system in generel except the order... first comes la maternelle, then primaire, then collège, then lycée. Lycée being high school. Now high school in France I know about in detail. It is for three years, seconde, première and terminale. I am in seconde. Basically it is a year of adjustement and figuring out what you want to do in the future. At the end of secode you decide which speciality or veau you want to take. There are three specialities, L, S, or ES. L being a focus on literature studies, S on sciences and ES on economics. The speciality you choose in high school is very important because it chooses your future in France. If, for example, you choose to go into S you have the most career options available to you of any of the sections, you could be a lawyer, doctor, teacher of science, etc ect. In short, there are A LOT of options. If you dont take S in high school but want to be a doctor your pretty much screwed because you'll have a difficult time getting into a university for sciences.

L on the otherhand has the least amount of career oportunities available, pretty much its the arts or a teacher, jouralist, or an art curator etc. But the options are a lot more limited. Peronally I will go into L and much prefer the people who go into L because they tend to more creative and artistic. That and I just can't really understand people who enjoy math and science... Also, in L you tend to have the choice to choose une option to go with your studies that also appears on the BAC, it can range from art to art history to theatre or something like that. I am in History of Art.
The choice of which speciality you go into isn't nessecarily yours either. If your grades in math and science are not all that exceptional but you want to go into S the teachers will say (if you have good lit grades) that you should go into L because that is what you are good at. You can then either be a good little boy or girl and say ok or resist and they generally have you redo the year (all in the fashion here in France).

The classes you have later on also change depending on which speciality you choose, for example, if you go into L you have no more math or science after your second year of high school ( or perhaps you have biology into your final year...) but you have 7 hours of philosophy a week your last year. Whereas if you go into S you have no more lit classes earlier and an insane amount of science and math classes. Also, no philosophy. S is commonly know to be the hardest option with the most work and the most amount of school hours, and L is known to be pretty much the easiest, that is - if you can write. Well, hope this helped! If you have any questions just let me know.