The esame di terza media and the consiglio orientativo: how the liceo decision is made at 13, and what moves it

The esame di terza media and the consiglio orientativo are the two things that decide, at 13, which kind of school an Italian child spends the next five years in, and Indian families usually discover them in the wrong order. They hear about the exam, which is in June and sounds like the important one, and they miss the consiglio orientativo, which comes six months earlier, is built on the previous year's marks, and is the one that actually points the child at a liceo or away from one. This post explains both, in the order they happen, and says what a family can do from seconda media onwards so that the recommendation says what they hope it will.

The order of events

Read the table from the top and the shape is clear. By the time the child sits anything that looks like an exam, the school they will go to has been chosen, and the recommendation that guided that choice was largely formed a year earlier.

The consiglio orientativo

In December of terza media the consiglio di classe, the teachers who teach the child, meet and write a short recommendation for each pupil: liceo, istituto tecnico or istituto professionale, and usually the type, liceo scientifico, liceo linguistico, tecnico economico, and so on. It is delivered to the family in writing, sometimes with a short conversation. What the licei and the tecnici are, and what each means for an Indian family, is in the class-by-class guide to the Italian school system.

The recommendation is advice. Italian law leaves the choice to the family, and a child recommended for a tecnico may enrol at a liceo. But the recommendation is written by people who have watched the child for two and a half years, and it draws on things a family may not see: how the child copes with the oral interrogazioni, whether they study without being made to, how they handle a hard week. The teachers' rule of thumb is simple: a child with marks around 8 and above across the subjects, steady work habits and a good condotta is a liceo child; a child at 6 and 7 who works hard is a tecnico child; a child at 6 who does not study is pointed at a professionale. Where an Indian child usually sits: high in maths, high in English, middling in Italian and the humanities for the first years, and marked down for the oral. That mix produces a recommendation for a liceo scientifico if the Italian has caught up, and for a tecnico if it has not, and the difference is often decided in seconda media.

The esame di terza media

In June the child sits the exam that closes the first cycle of schooling. Three written papers on three mornings: Italian, a choice of text types, narrative, argumentative, comprehension; maths, usually four problems, a geometry problem with formulas and their inverses, an algebra problem, a probability or statistics problem, and one tied to science; and the languages, English and the second language, in one combined paper. Then the colloquio, an oral of twenty to thirty minutes in front of the whole consiglio di classe, in which the child presents a topic of their own, connects it across subjects, and answers questions, including on civic education.

The final mark out of 10 is an average of the admission mark, which the teachers set from the child's three years, and the exam results. Six passes; eight and nine are good; ten, and ten with lode, are rare and remembered. The mark goes on the diploma and, for most licei, changes nothing, because the child was accepted in January. It matters in two places: for the child's own sense of themselves, and, at some oversubscribed schools, as a tie-breaker. The INVALSI test in April is a condition of admission to the exam and gives a separate certificate of levels; how it works is in INVALSI explained.

What moves the consiglio, from seconda media

Because the recommendation rests on seconda media, the work that changes it happens a year before it arrives.

1. The oral. Interrogazioni are half the marks in the media and the whole of the exam's colloquio. A child who studies the page and can say it, in Italian, with a beginning and an end, gets 8s; a child who knows it and mumbles gets 6s. Practise the oral at home in Italian, five minutes a day, the child telling the page to a parent.
2. Italian and the humanities. These are where an Indian child's average drops, and the average is what the teachers see. A term of Italian reading with a local tutor in seconda media does more for the consiglio than another term of maths.
3. Condotta and work habits. The mark for behaviour, out of 10, appears on the pagella and in the teachers' minds. Homework done, the diario kept, the registro checked, nothing late. This is the easiest 8 in the school.
4. Maths and English at a stretch. These are the child's strengths and the teachers should see them as strengths, not as adequate. A child who is a term ahead in maths and reads English novels is described at the December meeting in a different sentence. The maths syllabus year by year is in Italian school maths class by class.
5. Say the word early. In the first term of terza media, at the colloquio with the coordinator, say that the family is thinking of liceo scientifico and ask what the teachers would need to see. Teachers answer that question honestly and specifically, and a family that asks it in October is not surprised in December.

If the recommendation is not the one you hoped for

Read it as information, not as a verdict. Ask the coordinator which subject or habit drove it. If it is the Italian, and the child is otherwise a liceo child, enrolling at the liceo anyway with a plan for the Italian is a reasonable choice that many families make and that the schools accept. If it is the work habits, the recommendation is probably right, and a tecnico with a strong scientific track, which exists, is not a demotion; Italian tecnici lead to university. And if the choice is between a liceo where the child will struggle for five years and a tecnico where they will lead the class, the second is often the better life.

What we do

From seconda media we work the Italian maths syllabus a term ahead, in English, Hindi or Punjabi, with the four exam problems as the target from the start of the year, and we run the oral: the child explains a solved problem aloud, in Italian, with the Italian words, because the colloquio and the interrogazioni are where the marks are. For English we make sure the teacher sees a 9 or a 10, because it is the one subject where an Indian child can be top of the class in the first year. Bring the seconda media pagella to the free demo and we will tell you what the consiglio orientativo would say today, and what would move it.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →