On 27 March 2020, Émile Servan-Schreiber warned parents that Hypermind’s prediction market saw little chance of children returning to school soon. On 4 April, he shared a second snapshot suggesting a very long break. Both images ask the same question:
En France, quand les enfants retourneront-ils à l’école?
Question displayed in the archived Hypermind charts
In our translation: In France, when will children return to school? It asks about the timing of a return, with the possible dates divided into bands. The probabilities describe how the market allocated its expectations across those bands at each snapshot.
The two dated distributions
The chart shared on 27 March assigns the following probabilities, with date-band labels translated here:
- 4 May 2020 or earlier: 9.5%.
- Later in May 2020: 41.9%.
- June 2020: 30.5%.
- 1–15 September 2020: 15.2%.
- Perhaps later: 2.9%.
By the 4 April share, the leading outcome had changed. Its chart displays:
- 4 May 2020 or earlier: 3.6%.
- Later in May 2020: 12.6%.
- June 2020: 12.6%.
- 1–15 September 2020: 62.2%.
- Perhaps after September 2020: 0.9%.
- July or August 2020: 8.1%.
September rose by 47.0 percentage points between the shared snapshots, calculated from 62.2% minus 15.2%. The distributions use different menus: the later image includes a separate July–August option and changes the wording of the latest category. That makes the labels part of the comparison, alongside the probabilities themselves.
A phased reopening in May
On 13 April, President Emmanuel Macron announced progressive reopening from 11 May. The Education Ministry’s 4 May circular specified schools reopening progressively from 11 May and collèges in green-zone departments from 18 May, beginning with the first two secondary-school years. These official decisions describe a staged process, with different parts of the school system returning at different times.
The ministry’s 28 May update then described a positive assessment of the gradual reopening already under way. These sources establish a May return for part of the school system, rather than a single date when every child resumed normal attendance.
The 4 April chart’s September favourite was later than the start of reopening. Whether the contract meant a partial return, a national reopening or a return for all pupils is unknown, so the market cannot be formally scored. The public timeline nevertheless gives readers a concrete comparison between expectations in early April and the phased policy announced later that month.
