Toussaint holidays: how to catch up on the first gaps without overloading the student

In 2026, in mainland France and Corsica, the holidays begin after lessons on Saturday 17 October and school resumes on the morning of Monday 2 November. If a concept is still not understood despite several attempts, a targeted session or a short intensive course can help.

Calendar checked on 25 September 2026.

The first holidays of the year, the Toussaint holidays (the autumn half-term break around All Saints’ Day), come early enough in the year to correct course without overdramatising the first marks. A poor assessment can stem from a misunderstood chapter, an old prerequisite, an ineffective study method — sometimes revealed by homework that takes too long — or simply a lack of preparation. Before adding hours of revision, you therefore need to understand what the real problem is.

1. Make a diagnosis before the holidays

The diagnosis can fit on a single sheet of paper. Gather the first assessments, some homework done at home and the teacher’s comments. For each difficulty, ask: “What can my child not yet do alone?” An overall mark answers this question poorly.

For example, “8/20 in maths” can hide very different situations:

• the rules for calculating with fractions have not been mastered;
• the lesson is known but the student does not choose the right method in a problem;
• the reasoning is correct but the answers are poorly written up;
• the student loses a lot of marks on execution errors;
• a prerequisite from the previous year is blocking the current chapter.

The right revision depends on this cause. Rereading the chapter will not necessarily fix an application problem. Doing twenty more exercises will not resolve a definition that is still not understood.

Three levels for sorting difficulties

Status	What you observe	Decision for the holidays
Solid	The student explains and applies it without help.	An occasional reminder is enough.
Shaky	They succeed with a hint, an example or the lesson open.	Plan a targeted review, then a new exercise.
Blocking	They cannot get started or keep repeating the same mistake.	Go back to the prerequisite or ask for a new explanation.

Our article on the first marks of the year and the signs that should really raise concern explains how to read these first results in more detail. If the difficulties go beyond a single assessment, the guide to the signs that may justify private tutoring helps distinguish a one-off need from longer-term support.

2. Choose two priorities at most

By the Toussaint holidays, the student usually has only a few weeks of lessons behind them. Yet families can quickly draw up a long list: go back over fractions, revise English, review grammar, get ahead in history, fix writing methods and prepare for the next tests. This programme turns the holidays into a second school timetable.

Instead, choose one or two priorities that will have an effect on what follows. A priority is relevant if it is currently blocking several tasks or if it will come up again in the next few weeks.

In maths, being able to handle fractions can determine how algebra goes from here. In French, understanding what a developed answer requires can affect several assessments. In a language, reviewing a basic verb tense can be more useful than memorising a long vocabulary list unrelated to the current difficulties.

How do you decide between several gaps?

1. Start with the prerequisite that blocks what follows. A fundamental difficulty deserves more attention than an isolated detail.
2. Look at what comes up in several test papers. A repeated error is more informative than a one-off slip.
3. Ask what will be reused after the holidays. The priority should stay connected to classwork.
4. Set aside for now what the student can already do independently. Not everything needs to be reworked during the break.

Choosing two priorities does not mean ignoring the rest. It allows the effort to be concentrated where visible progress is possible, before reassessing when school starts again.

A concrete example: a difficulty worth targeting

A Quatrième (third year of collège, lower secondary school) student got a poor mark on a test combining algebra and fractions. It would be tempting to plan five days of “maths” and redo the whole chapter. Instead, start by going back over their test paper, and learn to use a corrected test paper to prepare for the next test. If they expand a simple expression correctly but go wrong as soon as a fraction appears, the priority may not be algebra: it is operations with fractions.

Day one: check the rules on a few very short calculations. Second session: put these fractions back into an algebraic expression. A few days later: set a different exercise without indicating the method. If the student gets the calculations right but still cannot start the problem, the difficulty has changed: now they need to work on identifying the procedure. This way of progressing avoids piling up worksheets without knowing what they are meant to fix.

The same principle applies in French. If a test paper shows that the student knows the text but answers in a single unjustified sentence, learning more content is not necessarily the priority. You can take two questions, build an answer with an idea, a justification and an example, then ask for a new answer without a model a few days later.

3. Build a ten-to-twelve-day schedule

The official 2026-2027 calendar sets the Toussaint holidays from after lessons on Saturday 17 October to the morning of Monday 2 November for zones A, B and C (the three French school-holiday zones); students who do not have lessons on Saturdays break up on Friday evening. Corsica follows the same dates. Calendars in the overseas territories may differ: check the official page for the territory concerned.

Over this period, there is no need to plan work every day. A ten-to-twelve-day schedule can deliberately start after one or two days off and include several days without revision.

Day	Objective	Example of work
D1	Diagnosis	Reread two test papers and identify the two priorities.
D2	Priority 1	Go back over the lesson, then do two targeted exercises.
D3	Rest	No schoolwork planned.
D4	Priority 2	Understand the concept and produce a first answer alone.
D5	Recall	Retest priority 1 without looking at the answers.
D6	Rest	No automatic catching up on the schedule.
D7	Application	Do a new exercise or a more complete question.
D8	Rest or light activity	Reading, sorting out documents or nothing school-related.
D9	Retest	Check both priorities without notes.
D10	Prepare for November	Note what has been learnt and what still needs to be asked of the tutor.

This schedule is an example, not a scientific standard. It can be compressed, moved or lightened depending on age, family travel and the work set by the school. As a practical benchmark, a block of 30 to 45 minutes may be enough to tackle a targeted objective for many collège and lycée (lower and upper secondary school) students; it is neither a proven minimum nor a proven optimum.

Why space things out instead of doing everything in three days?

Research on distributed practice shows that spacing out work sessions generally supports retention better than concentrating the same repetitions. The meta-analysis by Mawson and Kang published in 2025, devoted to applied classroom research, brought together 22 reports covering more than 3,000 school and university students and found an average effect in favour of distributed practice. An earlier meta-analysis by Cepeda and colleagues had already shown that the right interval depends in particular on how long you want to retain the information.

So there is no mandatory sequence of days to apply to every student. The useful rule for the Toussaint holidays is simpler: come back to a difficulty several times, with real intervals between attempts.

4. Alternate reviewing the lesson and doing exercises

Effective revision is not a succession of readings. When a concept is poorly understood, start by going back over it: definition, example, method, correction of the test paper. But then close the material and ask the student to produce something.

In his review published by the American Federation of Teachers, John Dunlosky ranks practice testing and distributed practice among the most useful strategies studied. The principle applies directly to the holidays: after reviewing a concept, the student should try to retrieve it or use it without keeping the answers in front of them.

A simple four-step cycle

1. Understand: go back over the explanation that caused the problem.
2. Try: answer without a model or solve a similar exercise.
3. Correct: identify the first error, not just look at the final result.
4. Retest: come back a few days later with a different question.

If the student only succeeds at the exercise that was corrected earlier, mastery remains uncertain. The best sign is that they recognise the same skill in a new question, explain their approach and finish with less help.

The quality of the task matters too. The Education Endowment Foundation’s summary on homework indicates that quality seems more important than quantity, and that tasks linked to classroom learning, with a clear objective and feedback, are generally more relevant than extra work with no specific link.

5. Plan genuine days without schoolwork

The holidays can be used to fix a gap without becoming a permanent boot camp. Writing rest days into the schedule from the outset avoids the “we’ll see once we’ve finished” mechanism, which constantly pushes the break back.

A day without schoolwork really means that no catch-up exercise is planned. If a revision session is skipped, there is no need to automatically double the next day’s session. First ask whether the missed task is still a priority.

Do not use volume as a measure of success

“He worked for eight hours” describes a duration. “He can now solve three types of equation on his own that he couldn’t even start before” describes progress. For each priority, choose an observable test before the holidays: redo an exercise without help, recite and explain a rule, write a paragraph or answer a question without the lesson.

At the end of the period, repeat this test with a new example. If the student still fails, that is no reason to fill the last few days: note the block precisely for when school resumes or for outside support.

6. When should you book an intensive course or private tutoring over the Toussaint holidays?

Outside support becomes relevant when the family knows what it wants to work on but the student cannot unblock the difficulty alone: a prerequisite not understood, a method that remains confusing, the same mistake repeated or being unable to see where to start.

L’Éducation nationale (the French state education system) itself runs stages de réussite (catch-up courses) during the Toussaint holidays. These courses, offered to volunteer students who feel they need them, aim in particular to consolidate core knowledge and fill certain gaps. The institutional format given by the ministry is 15 hours, or three hours a day for five days, in small groups.

This official format does not mean that a 15-hour private course is necessary for every child. An intensive course is worthwhile when several closely spaced sessions serve a clearly defined objective. For a single misunderstood concept, one or two targeted sessions followed by independent work may make more sense.

Questions to ask before booking

• What specific gap will be worked on?
• Has the tutor seen the test papers or exercises that reveal the problem?
• Is the course individual or in a group, and with how many students?
• How will you check that the student can redo the work alone?
• What work is planned after the last session?

On NOEO, families can browse tutors and talk to them free of charge before booking an online private tutoring session. There is no family subscription: only booked sessions are charged, with their final price shown before confirmation. For the Toussaint holidays, the value of a targeted session is to start from a test paper or a specific block, then plan what the student will need to redo alone before the next session.

7. Prepare for the return to school in November

The last revision session should not be used to add a new chapter. It is there to prepare for the return to school. For each priority, note:

• what the student can now do alone;
• what they still only manage with a hint;
• the error that keeps coming back;
• the question to ask the teacher or the private tutor;
• the first piece of work to redo after the return to school.

Clear follow-up avoids starting from scratch in November. On NOEO, after every session the tutor produces a session report that can in particular bring out strengths, areas for improvement and work to prepare. This follow-up is separate from Learn packs: the exercises given by the tutor through the session report are not part of them.

The holidays can also be used to reset the organisation: where lessons are kept, realistic times, materials prepared and work slots. Our article on school organisation that holds up over time covers this question beyond the Toussaint holidays alone.