Grade 9 and 10 Curriculum

Discover our global curriculum and create your own unique learning experience.

Our core pre-baccalaureate classes provide foundational skills and ensure that you explore widely, keeping your mind and options open. You will discover new talents outside your comfort zone, and you will consolidate further those areas where you already excel as you pursue one of two internationally-recognized programs, preparing you for your baccalaureate journey and for college, career, and civic life.

There is vibrant mingling between students in our International and French tracks. Together, you will attend the Freshman Retreat, try out for sports, travel across the world, audition for plays, organize clubs, and collaborate in student leadership roles. In the International Track, you will attend advisory, English Literature, Research and Design, Arts, and PE options alongside your friends in the French Track. In addition, if you are a bilingual student in the International Track, you can take some academic subjects in French.

The International Track is the gateway to the IB Diploma for non-French speakers. More than half the students entering the International High School do not speak a word of French. Many of these students enter with intermediate or advanced competence in Chinese, Spanish or Italian. Others did not benefit from  a language requirement at their Middle School and jump into our beginners classes in Chinese or French.  The International Track is also the gateway for students who are fluent in French but prefer to progress directly towards the IB.

Our French Track leads to the French Bac. Students entering the High School from our own 8th grade, or another a French school experience, can opt to remain in the French Track, moving through the same exams and expectations as their peers in France. 

International Track Overview

Our foundation classes have conventional titles but are not conventional in the ways you will learn. Our approach transcends rote learning and busy work. You will undertake and master nothing less than the essential skills and attitudes of a real experimental scientist, a historian or geographer, a literary scholar, a mathematician, a economist, and a working artist, musician, actor, or filmmaker. Uniquely, because of our school’s bilingual identity, some courses in the International Track can be taken in French.

International Curriculum Highlights

International Track courses are designed to help students become active learners with global citizen education.

French Track Overview

The French national education system has a long and illustrious history and is renowned the world over for its intellectual rigour, its emphasis on teaching students to think and express their ideas cogently and in a logical manner. Students explore the natural sciences by assessing evidence and making connections and learn not only to solve mathematical problems but consider too what these concepts tell us about the world around us.

In Grade 11, students conclude the detailed exploration of French literature that starts in grade 9; in Grade 12 one of the defining characteristics of a French education is an introduction to Philosophy and the landmark philosophical theories of famous thinkers. The overriding goal of the French curriculum is to educate the citizens of tomorrow, helping them to develop a strong moral compass as well as the tools with which to make complex decisions, emphasizing the values and obligations we all have towards each other in a shared world.

In Grade 9 (classe de 3ème), students prepare the “Brevet des Collèges." This is a French national exam, externally assessed, which includes French, math, and history/geography, and courses throughout Grade 9 support student preparation for the exam. The Grade 10 curriculum (classe de 2de) prepares the students to choose which tracks and specialties they will study in Grades 11 and 12 (classes de 1ère et Terminale) within the French Track section.

French Curriculum Highlights

Successful completion of the French Baccalaureate provides students with a diploma equivalent to completion of High School in France.