The film is based on a novel by Anna Gavalda, and adapted for the small screen by M. Langlois and Veronique Lecharpy. The idea that a formal academic school program is traditionally seen as the way for young minds to be formed and molded, yet how many children that are deemed failures by the same system go on to make names for themselves as they discover fields and subjects not taught by the educational establishment world-wide.

At Léon Blum High School in Créteil, France, a history teacher decides to have her weakest 10th grade class participate in a national history competition.