YELLOWKNIFE - Students at Sir John Franklin school have raised the bar for French Language Advanced Placement Program testing, beating provincial averages for British Columbia and Alberta.

Jaya Bastedo, 17, and Stephane Pontus, 16, each scored the highest mark attainable for the French Language Advanced Placement Program. They were joined by 14 other students who passed the tests last year, giving NWT's students the highest pass rate among western provinces. - Christine Grimard/NNSL photo

The exams, recognized by 90 per cent of Canadian universities, allow students to prove their abilities are at a first-year university level to receive the equivalent post-secondary credits.

Of the 16 students who wrote the exam last year, all of them passed at the level of well qualified or extremely well qualified, meaning a 100 per cent pass rate.

Anne-Mieke Cameron, principal at Sir John Franklin, said that's pretty impressive compared to British Columbia's students with an 83 per cent pass rate, and Alberta's at 80 per cent.

"I think it speaks incredibly highly of the French immersion of our district," Cameron told the YK1 school board Feb.13. "The grade point average was just out of this world."

Jaya Bastedo, 17, was one of the nine students who passed the test at the extremely well-qualified level. She said pretty well all of the students in French immersion wrote the exam.

Bastedo noted that French immersion students who stick to it until the end of high school are usually pretty motivated, with most of them planning on going to university.

"It's sort of for people who are high achievers," she said.

"If you're doing the extra work to do French, it's (because) you're going to university," said Stephane Pontus, 16, who also got the top mark on the test. Pontus had a little help though, having a French-Canadian mother.

For those students without the extra help, French immersion teacher Micheline Ricard prepares them for three months prior to the exam. She spends three evenings per week helping the students study for the test.

The students also attend after-school classes with Ricard once a week for an hour-and-a-half leading up to the test, then more often for three weeks right before the test. Ricard compared the rate of studying to training and warming-up before a race.

For the next session, one student will try writing the French literature exam, and two others will try calculus.