The Vaud school report explained: averages, points and subject groups

01What the Vaud school report actually contains

The school report is an official document and the canton sets what goes into it. It contains three things: the student's results, as comments or marks depending on the year group; a record of absences; and the decision concerning the student's pathway, whether that is promotion, orientation, a change of track or a change of level.

Parents receive it twice a year from the 3rd year onwards: once at the end of the first semester, once at the end of the school year. In cycle 3, that of lower secondary, the January report is only issued when decisions are taken at that point, typically a change of level in the voie générale. Each report then joins the school record that follows the student throughout compulsory schooling.

This calendar has a practical consequence many parents discover too late. The January report is not a simple informational checkpoint: it is often the last moment when a decision can still be shifted by the work of the following months. By June, the essentials are settled.

02How averages are calculated: marks from 1 to 6, and a rounding that decides everything

From the 5th year onwards, results are communicated as marks from 1 to 6, with half points. Six is the maximum, 1 the minimum, and 4 marks the sufficiency threshold. An average of 3.5 is therefore insufficient; an average of 4 is sufficient, with no margin at all.

The decisive point is the rounding. Subject averages are set to the nearest half point. A student whose decimal average stands at 3.74 sees 3.5 on the report; at 3.76, they see 4. Two hundredths of a point separate a displayed insufficiency from a displayed sufficiency. And it is that rounded figure, not the real average, that then enters the point totals.

This mechanism explains a common frustration. A child can work for a whole semester, push their decimal average from 3.55 to 3.70, and see the report show exactly the same mark as before. The progress is real, it is simply not yet visible. Knowing where the next threshold sits changes the conversation you have with your child entirely.

03In 8P, the ECR enters the average before the rounding

In the 8th year, the calculation has one extra step for three subjects: French, maths and German. The final annual average in those subjects consists of 70 % of the decimal annual average, that of classroom assessments, and 30 % of the mark obtained in the cantonal reference test. Only that combined result is then rounded to the nearest half point.

The order of operations matters. Take a student at 4.4 class average in maths. With a 3 in the ECR, the calculation gives 0.7 × 4.4 + 0.3 × 3, that is 3.98, rounded to 4 on the report. With a 5 in the ECR, the same student gets 0.7 × 4.4 + 0.3 × 5, that is 4.58, rounded to 4.5. Two points of difference in the ECR shift the reported mark by half a point, and that half point then enters the totals that decide orientation.

04In the 11th year, the regime changes completely

This is the point almost nobody explains to parents, and it is decisive. The end-of-11th-year examinations have nothing to do with the ECR of the 8th year. They do not cover the same subjects, do not carry the same weight, and include an oral component the 8th year does not have.

At the end of the 11th year, the written cantonal examinations are identical for every student in the canton and cover four subjects: French, maths, German and English. The final mark in each combines the annual average at 80 % and the examination mark at 20 %. In French and maths, that examination mark itself consists of the written paper for two thirds and the oral for one third. In German and English, the written paper counts for three quarters and the oral for one quarter.

The practical consequence is clear. A parent who lived through the ECR of the 8th year and expects the same mechanism three years later is wrong on three counts at once: they forget English, they overestimate the weight of the examination, and they do not prepare their child for the oral. That is precisely the kind of mistake that is paid for in June.

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“In the 8th year, a written paper carries 30 %. In the 11th, a written and oral examination carries 20 %, across four subjects instead of three. These are not the same exams, and they are not prepared the same way.”

The SOS teaching team

05The subject groups the report never names

Here is what the report does not explain and what nonetheless decides everything. Promotion decisions are not taken subject by subject: they rest on point totals calculated over two sets, called the main group and the restricted group. Both totals must be reached at the same time.

The main group gathers all the subjects of the year. The restricted group isolates those the canton considers fundamental. And that is where the trap lies: their composition changes at every stage of schooling. In the 6th year, the restricted group contains only French and maths. In the 8th, German is added. From the 9th, the option is added. A parent who keeps the previous year's definition in mind is using the wrong calculation.

This composition also explains why some subjects weigh far more than others. A student can reach the main group total comfortably thanks to good results in visual arts, music and creative activities, and still fail on the restricted group. The reverse, however, almost never happens.

06The full pathway, year group by year group

Here are all the official thresholds in force, from the end of primary school to the maturité certificate. This table exists nowhere in this form: the figures are scattered across four separate cantonal documents, one per stage.

Three things stand out when you read the table as a whole. First, promotion is automatic until the 6th year, except the move from 6th to 7th: there is therefore a first real filter well before the orientation of the 8th year, and many families are unaware of it. Second, the threshold for access to the voie prégymnasiale, 46.5 points, sits well above the promotion threshold of 40 points: passing the year and obtaining VP are two requirements separated by more than six points. Third, gymnasium introduces a rule compulsory schooling does not have, and we come back to it below.

07The hidden rule: as many times 4 points as there are marks

The figures 28, 40, 44, 12 and 16 look arbitrary. They are not. Each corresponds exactly to the number of subjects in the group multiplied by 4, that is, by the sufficiency threshold.

This is not our interpretation: it is how the canton words it itself. The gymnasium regulation requires, for promotion, “a total of marks at least equal to as many times 4 points as there are marks”. The same logic governs the whole of schooling, without being written as plainly in the primary and lower-secondary documents.

In other words, every promotion threshold amounts to asking for an average of 4 across the subjects of the group. The only real function of the points system is to allow compensation: a 5 in music makes up for a 3 in German within the main group, but not within the restricted group, where German appears and music does not.

And the rule has one exception, which is precisely where it becomes interesting. The thresholds for access to the voie prégymnasiale do not follow the calculation: 46.5 points over ten subjects corresponds to an average of 4.65, and 15 points over three subjects to an average of 5. The gap between 4 and 4.65 is exactly what separates, at the end of the 8th year, passing the year and reaching VP.

08A worked example, from report to decision

Take a 9th-year student in the voie générale. Her report shows: French 4, maths 3.5, German 4, option 4.5, English 4, natural sciences 4.5, geography 4, history 3.5, visual arts 5, music 4.5, creative and manual activities 4.5.

The restricted group adds French, maths, German and the option: 4 + 3.5 + 4 + 4.5 = 16 points. The threshold is met, only just. The main group adds those four subjects and the other seven: 16 + 4 + 4.5 + 4 + 3.5 + 5 + 4.5 + 4.5 = 46 points. The threshold of 44 is exceeded by 2 points. The student is promoted.

Now change a single mark. If maths drops from 3.5 to 3, the restricted group falls to 15.5 points and the main group to 45.5. The main group stays comfortably above its threshold, but the restricted group falls below its own. This is precisely the situation the restricted group is designed to detect: a solid general level masking a weakness in one fundamental subject.

This example also shows where to put the effort. Half a point gained in maths is worth far more here than a full point gained in music, because it counts in both groups instead of one. Not all subjects carry the same weight in this calculation, and the report says so nowhere.

09Borderline cases, and what the canton tolerates

A student falling just below a threshold is not automatically held back. The canton provides for borderline cases, with numerical tolerances expressed in points of insufficiency, that is, the cumulative gap between the marks and the threshold of 4.

• In cycle 2, from the move into the 7th year to the end of the 8th: at most 1 point of insufficiency per group.
• In cycle 3, voie prégymnasiale, in the 9th, 10th and 11th years: at most 0.5 point of insufficiency per group.
• In cycle 3, voie générale, in the 9th, 10th and 11th years: at most 1 point of insufficiency per group.

The voie prégymnasiale is therefore twice as unforgiving as the voie générale. A VP student at 43.5 points is within tolerance; at 43, they are not. The same total in VG remains recoverable. It is a difference many families discover at the worst possible moment, and it deserves to be known from the start of the 9th year.

These tolerances are not entitlements. A borderline case is examined, not granted automatically: the decision rests with the class council, which takes account of the student's pathway and progression. A child whose curve has been rising since January is not in the same position as a child whose curve is falling, at an identical point total.

10At gymnasium, two new rules appear

Many families assume gymnasium simply extends the secondary system. That is true of the architecture, which remains a point total and a restricted group. It is false for two additional rules, which catch out otherwise strong students every year.

The first is a cap on the number of insufficiencies. Beyond four annual marks below 4, promotion is refused, even if the point total is reached. A student at 46 points with five marks at 3.5 is not promoted, while a student at 44 points with two marks at 3 is. Compulsory schooling has no such rule: it counts only points, never the number of subjects involved.

The second is double compensation, which applies only to the maturité certificate. The total of the fourteen final marks is reduced by the sum of the gaps to 4 of the insufficient marks, and it is that corrected total that must reach 56 points. In practice, a mark of 3 costs twice: once because it is worth 3 instead of 4, a second time because its gap of one point is subtracted. An insufficiency therefore weighs double at the maturité compared with the year before.

These two rules change the work strategy. In secondary school, it is rational to concentrate effort on the subjects of the restricted group. At gymnasium, it becomes rational to first lift every subject below 4, even the least important, because it is their number and their gap that cause failure.

11What to look at first on a report

Most parents read the report in the order it is printed, stopping at the lowest mark. That is the least useful order. Here is the one we recommend.

• First the decision written at the bottom: promotion, orientation, change of track or of level. It is the only element that genuinely commits the year ahead.
• Then the subjects of this year's restricted group, added together. It is the most binding total, and the first to tip.
• Then the main group total, to know how much margin you have in points.
• Then the number of marks below 4, if the student is at gymnasium: beyond four, the point total no longer suffices.
• Finally the individual marks, to spot where half a point can most easily be gained, and the record of absences, which often explains marks that look inexplicable.

12Four common reading mistakes

The first is applying last year's rules. The restricted group of the 8th year is not that of the 9th, and the promotion threshold of the 8th year, 40 points, is not that of the 9th, 44 points. Every year group has its own calculation, which is why a complete table is more useful than a memorised rule.

The second is confusing progress with crossing a threshold. A child can have progressed markedly without the report showing it, because the rounding absorbs the gain. You then need to look at the decimal average, which the teacher can provide, rather than the displayed mark.

The third is waiting for June. Decisions on changing level in the voie générale are taken at the end of each semester, from the end of the first semester of the 9th year to the end of the first semester of the 11th. The January report is therefore a real decision point, not a dress rehearsal.

The fourth, and the most costly, is reacting to the lowest mark. That is rarely where effort pays best. A child at 3 in German will need months of work to reach 4; the same child at 3.5 in history can gain their half point in a few weeks. The points calculation does not reward courage, it rewards arithmetic — except at gymnasium, where the number of insufficiencies changes the picture.

13How we work from the report

When a family brings us a report, we always begin by identifying the exact stage the student is at, because the thresholds depend on it entirely. We then recalculate both point totals and establish the precise gap to the next threshold. It takes ten minutes and turns a diffuse worry into a numerical objective: one and a half points are missing in the restricted group, and here are the two subjects where they are most within reach.

We add a mock exam under real conditions, because a report says where the student stood at the end of a period, not what they can do today under time pressure. For an 11th-year student, that mock exam also includes the oral, since the oral counts for a third of the examination mark in French and maths, and a quarter in German and English.

Note: thresholds and procedures may change from one edition of the cantonal documents to the next, and their application rests with the school. The figures above come from the leaflets carrying the 2026 reference. If a decision is unclear, the school management is the authority.