IHETC School
Lower secondary — where gaps open up
This is when a pupil appears to keep up while understanding falls behind: marks still hold, meaning less so. Tracking makes that gap visible within weeks, long before the report card.
Subjects covered
All are open within the same subscription, and the pupil moves between them with no formalities. A physics block caused by an algebra gap is then handled in both subjects the same evening, which is exactly what needs to happen.
- subjects at lower secondary
- 6
- subjects from primary to upper secondary
- 13
- stages to validate one concept
- 4
- Mathematics
- French
- English
- Life and earth sciences
- Physics and chemistry
- History and geography
When a pupil is stuck
The tutor changes angle, offers an example with the same structure, breaks the problem down and asks the question that moves things forward. It leaves the answer to the pupil and stays with them until they find it: that search is what gets learned, and it comes back intact on assessment day.
The signal worth knowing how to read
A secondary pupil keeping decent marks while saying they understand nothing is applying procedures they have not yet connected. That holds until chapters start combining, near the end of the cycle. Tracking makes the gap legible from the first weeks: subjects opened, concepts revisited, actual working time. Tackling it while the marks still hold takes a few sessions; tackling it afterwards takes a term.
The three supports of the cycle
- 01
Organisation
Ten teachers, ten sets of expectations. The week gets written, and what is written gets done.
- 02
Recognition
Naming the type of question before hunting for a method. That is what makes the mark on mixed tests.
- 03
Prerequisites
The tutor goes back to the missing concept, however old. The cause is almost always there.
Explore in detail
- MathematicsThe subject where falling behind becomes irrecoverable fastest, because everything stacks: without fractions, no algebra; without algebra, no equations; without equations, nothing. A gap in year 7 is paid for in year 10.
- FrenchFrench conditions every other subject: a pupil who does not understand a question fails at mathematics without having any difficulty in mathematics. It is the subject whose lag is most invisible, because it shows up elsewhere.
- EnglishIn Guinea, English is not a decorative subject: mining and banking partly operate in it. A pupil who disengages in secondary school finds themselves shut out ten years later, without ever having made the connection.
- Life and earth sciencesThe subject where you learn to link an observation to an explanation, and to tell correlation from cause. That skill serves far beyond science — it serves not to believe just anything.
- Physics and chemistryThe first subject where mathematics becomes a tool serving something else. A pupil weak in algebra discovers their gap here, often abruptly, although the difficulty does not come from physics.
- History and geographyA subject reputed to be « learned by heart », it actually assesses the ability to connect facts and to write. A pupil who knows every date but cannot build a paragraph will not pass.