Current exemptions from the formal school model raise questions on whether these exemptions reflect a crisis of this very model in its dual function–developing specifically educational knowledge and disseminating them in society. Based on a presentation of two research programmes on innovative schemes–a boarding school for excellence and a micro-lycée–this paper is designed to study how these schemes build specific relations between pupils and institutional expectations. Despite the variety of objectives and pupils who attend these programmes, what these two initiatives have in common is that they bypass apparently essential aspects of the French school system. Boarding schools for excellence acknowledge and increase the heterogeneity in schools to enable pupils from underprivileged backgrounds to improve self-fulfilment. Micro-lycées are located in educational enclaves where youths who do not always behave as ordinary pupils, bend classical expectations of the school system in which youths will be gradually reintroduced. In both cases, it seems easier to take action on space than on time. More generally, these two innovative schemes involve renewing one’s understanding of the school system if the ultimate purpose is to understand what is meant nowadays by education and its developments.