The time spent in Collège is vital as students prepare to make their initial choices about their future careers and paths. As such IFS has ensured to have in place a rigorous and relevant curriculum. 

A French Collège, (Cycle 3 and 4) curriculum is cognitively demanding and challenging for students as they apply the essential concepts and skills to real-world, complex and open-ended situations. The IFS curriculum components include clear learning outcomes with matching assessments, engaging learning experiences and instructional strategies, organised into sequenced units of study. 

Exposure to this rigorous curriculum in Collège is a great predictor of academic success in Lycee. Gradually increased autonomy, in terms of individual work and group projects carried out in class helps to develop our student’s thought processes. The IFS curriculum content is not just interesting to students, but involves particular intellectual challenges. When students successfully meet these challenges, their new learning will have meaning and value in contexts beyond the curriculum unit or classroom setting.

IFS cultivates its international dimension by focusing on languages. This helps IFS students develop their critical thinking and judgement, constructing independent ideas, using precise and correct language. Students perfect their capacity for expression and oral and written comprehension, develop their knowledge of and proficiency in the French and English language, and build up a literary and artistic culture.

The teaching of Mathematics at IFS has significant importance. Particularly building on problem-solving in real-world contexts. We are training students in reasoning and demonstration, and practising investigation. Our students explore numbers and calculation; organisation and management of data; size and measurements; space and geometry.

Close links are developed with other subjects such as the sciences, to give more meaning to the learning of mathematics. Students in Collège develop their ability to observe living things and natural phenomena. By analysing the results of experiments and data, students explore and seek the causes and predict the effects, put forward hypotheses, re-experiment and draw conclusions. This helps develop rigorous critical thinking that can distinguish between facts and ideas, scientific theories and beliefs, or assess the validity of “scientific” information that might be in the public domain.

At IFS it is important that our students gain a broad and balanced education. Particular focus is given to the Humanities, Art, Civic and moral education. IFS students exercise and develop their creativity, imagination and manual skills to experiment, produce and create individual or collective works. We encourage students to accurately reflect on time and space in human societies and analyse a wide variety of social phenomena.

It is important to us that IFS students develop the capacity to reflect on the past and on historical events. Through the IFS structured curriculum students begin to understand the major developments, turning points in both national and world history. Thereby acquiring an understanding of the world in which they live. Civic and moral education then further develops a student’s emotional awareness, reflecting on the limits of personal freedom in relation to others. At IFS students study rules and laws, developing an understanding of the main principles of justice.

A multilingual education provides IFS students with superior ability to concentrate, solve problems and focus, better mental flexibility and multitasking skills. Learning more than one language enables and fosters new conversations and new experiences for our students. 

At IFS students choose a second foreign language. Some students decide to learn a third foreign language. 

Language skills are developed simultaneously throughout Collège. Listening and understanding, reading, reacting and conversing, speaking, writing and responding to writing. An IFS education focuses on language in Collège to achieve two closely linked objectives. Learning to communicate in another language, (understand and express yourself in conversation and in writing) and to discover other cultures. 

At IFS we recognise the additional challenges for older children to adapt to a bilingual or even multilingual curriculum. As such we have carefully developed an immersive French language support programme designed to gradually integrate non-French speakers. 

The French Passerelle, (meaning bridge or gateway) programme conducted throughout Sixième and Cinquième, (grade 6 and 7, age 11 to 12/13) consists of a small class of non-French speaking students led by a qualified dedicated bilingual teacher. This pull-out strategy helps gradually integrate non-French speakers into standard classes. Providing individual assistance for students a year or two depending on the needs identified by the teachers.

The addition of a ‘Buddy’ system with French students further helps with integration, particularly when coupled with participation in cultural and sporting events. Should additional support be required, our partnership with the Alliance Française de Singapour helps children level up in French through its specialist programmes.   

For students who show proficiency and comfort learning and expressing themselves in both French and English, IFS offers a truly bilingual programme in the form of the International Section. This uniquely bilingual educational experience runs throughout College from Sixième to Troisième, (grade 6 to 9) with the option to continue through Lycée, (grade 10 to 12) to graduation.

Students opting for the International stream are integrated into a number of French classes, Mathematics and the Sciences, and up to 12 hours per week of lessons conducted in English. These classes cover subjects including Language & Literature, History, Geography, the Arts and Sports education. Thus offering international students an opportunity to fully integrate their bilingual status and skills with their formal education.

Understanding the incredible benefits of a multilingual education the IFS Classic section still enables students to pursue their interest in the English language. IFS students opting for the Classic stream will nevertheless have up to 7 hours of lesson time per week in English. Subjects conducted in English for Classic Stream students include English as a Second Language, taught in adapted groups, the Arts and Sports education.

In addition, Mandarin section is offered to students in Sixième, (Grade 6), 3 hours a week.

From Cinquième, (grade 7) students will need to select a second language of study. At IFS students are able to choose from Mandarin, Spanish or German. Moving into Quatrième, (grade 8) students have the option of taking a third language, either in German, Spanish, Mandarin or Latin.

Time in Collège culminates with the French national brevet diploma, (Diplôme National du Brevet or DNB) exams taken at the end of Troisième (grade 9, age 14/15). Students in the International section can opt for the French national brevet diploma “International Option”, (DNBI). 

The French national brevet diploma is both an assessment and a certification of the knowledge and skills acquired at the end of Collège (Middle School). The assessment is continuous throughout the final year of Collège, in Troisième (grade 9). End the year with one oral exam and four written exams for a final score out of 800 points. 

Students will sit written exams in French, mathematics, history and geography and moral and civic education, sciences (physics-chemistry, earth and life sciences, technology, choosing 2 disciplines out of the 3). The oral examination can be based on one of the projects the student has conducted during the interdisciplinary practical lessons of cycle 4. This oral test is an academic defense, preparing students for similar work in Lycée and in University. Its purpose is to evaluate the students’ ability to present the knowledge and skills acquired during Collège.

For students in the International section and opting for the DNBI “international option”, an additional two oral test in language and literature and history-geography are scheduled and set up at the school.

In order to obtain the French national brevet diploma, students must have an overall grade average of 10/20 across all their grades and have validated their common core skills. 

Based on the overall grade, students may receive a distinction: 480 Assez Bien, 560 Bien, 640 Très Bien, (fairly good, good, very good).