History Governance School year Primary school Middle school and high school

School year
In Metropolitan France, the school year runs from early September to early July. The school calendar is standardised throughout the country and is the sole domain of the ministry.
In May, schools need time to organise exams (for example, the baccalauréat). Outside Metropolitan France, the school calendar is set by the local recteur.
Major holiday breaks are as follows:

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  All Saints (la Toussaint), two weeks (since 2012) around the end of October and the beginning of November;
  
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  Christmas (Noël), two weeks around Christmas Day and New Year's Day;
  
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  winter (hiver), two weeks starting in mid February;
  
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  spring (printemps) or Easter (Pâques), two weeks starting in mid April;
  
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  summer (été), two months starting in early July. (mid-June for high school students).
  

Primary school
Schooling in France is not mandatory (but instruction is). Most parents start sending their children to preschool (maternelle) when they turn 3. Some even start earlier at age 2 in toute petite section "TPS". The first two years of preschool (TPS and petite section "PS") are introductions to community living; children learn how to become students and are introduced to their first notions of arithmetic, begin to recognize letters, develop oral language, etc. The last two years of preschool, moyenne section and grande section, are more school-like; pupils are introduced to reading, writing and more mathematics.
A preschool can have its own school zone (mostly true in towns) or be affiliated to an elementary school (mostly in villages). As in other educational systems, French primary school students usually have a single teacher (or two) who teaches the complete curriculum.
After kindergarten, the young students move on to the école élémentaire (elementary school). In the first 3 years of elementary school, they learn to write, develop their reading skills and get some basics in subjects such as French, mathematics, science and the arts, to name a few. Note that the French word for a teacher at the primary school level is professeur or professeure des écoles (previously called instituteur, or its feminine form institutrice).
Children stay in elementary school for 5 years until they are 10–11 years-old. The grades are named: CP (cours préparatoire), CE1 (cours élémentaire 1), CE2 (cours élémentaire 2), CM1 (cours moyen 1) and CM2 (cours moyen 2).