Secondary school students on the Magdalen Islands achieved surprising results, to say the least, in the last ministerial exams, both in French and in mathematics. The sum of several factors that together served the students well.
Posted at 5:00 am
“What is in their genes to achieve such results? The joke, created by a French specialist, expresses the surprise of many when they saw that 95.5% of students in the Magdalen Islands had passed the ministerial French test in lower secondary school last year.
While student pass rates on this exam have declined in most Quebec school service centers, they have increased in the Magdalen Islands.
How can such a success be explained? Right from the start, the director general of the Center de services scolaire des Îles reminds us that the number of students in secondary school 5 is small.
“We have small groups, about sixty students. So a student is worth more than 1%. Down or up, our prices [de réussite] are very volatile. If we were mediocre, it would also appear very quickly,” says Brigitte Aucoin.
Polyvalente des Îles-de-la-Madeleine has 424 students this year.
PHOTO SUPPLIED BY NATHAËL OUELLET-MIOUSSE
French teacher Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse
“Since we have fewer young people, it might be easier to look at the problematic cases,” agrees Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse, a high school French teacher. “I’m counting them on the fingers of my hand: I can say, ‘You, you and you, I want you to come to recovery, and we’re working on verb conjugations,'” he says.
The teacher insists on one point: we cannot compare the results of the Magdalen Islands, for example, with those of Montreal, where we welcome many immigrant students.
We have a pool of students who grew up speaking French. It certainly plays into the percentage of success.
Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse, high school French teacher
Another factor that may have contributed to this success: Schools have not been closed for very long on the islands due to COVID-19. “We were like in a bubble,” illustrates Ms. Aucoin.
The islands’ schools, she also says, work “a lot” on writing and reading in primary school. The idea: “go beyond the program, so that at the end of each cycle [les] Students become high-calibre readers,” continues Brigitte Aucoin.
French teacher Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse also says that it’s not just his 5th secondary that makes the difference. “It starts in preschool with reading and reading habits,” he explains.
The Call of the Sea
The completion rate at the CSS des Îles-de-la-Madeleine is almost 85%, says the manager. “It’s not an anecdote, it’s a trend, but we’re aiming for 90%. Every percentage point that we will get is more difficult at this point,” says Brigitte Aucoin.
Those rates are “remarkable for a coastal region,” says Denis Richard, program manager at the Madeli-Aide Foundation for Education, an organization that provides scholarships for academic perseverance.
“The lure of fishing is very strong,” says Richard, who notes that education is important in this area.
“I’m an electronics engineer and they have more computers in their boats than I have in my office!” I think people are becoming more aware of that,” continues Denis Richard.
When the fishing season starts, some students have the call of the sea, observes Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse.
I have young people in April who tell me, “I’m going fishing and I’m not coming back.” I tell them: “No, you come back for the exam, your uncle or your father will look for someone else that day.”
Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse, high school French teacher
When he is happy about the good results of his students, Mr. Ouellet-Miousse says that nothing is certain. “Will we have a 75% or even 95% success rate this year? It’s difficult to say. We are a tight-knit community, we were pleased with these results, but we take them with humility,” says the teacher.
Don’t worry, they’re good at French and math, but otherwise the islands’ teenagers are as good as the rest?
Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse laughs.
“Yes, they are like the others. They don’t like French very much and my hobby is to make it interesting. I want them to understand that I am able to safely steer the boat with minimal effort,” concludes Nathaël Ouellet-Miousse.
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95.5% 2022 pass rate of Îles-de-la-Madeleine pupils in the 5th secondary French exam
Source: Ministry of Education
88.0% 2022 pass rate of students from Magdalen Islands in mathematics exam of upper secondary school
Source: Ministry of Education