How did Tom's first day back to school go?

Question

- Comment s'est passé le premier jour de retour de Tom à l'école? I really struggled with this sentence as you can see but this seemed to be a reasonable translation of the meaning. I'm guessing it's clumsy/inelegant? But I wasn't even close to the right answer!

Cécile Janty-Davies · Accepted Answer

Hi Kay,
It is just because the term 'la rentrée' means 'le premier jour de retour à l'école', you will see it in adverts aiming to sell items like cahiers, crayons, stylos, livres ...
Comment s'est passé la rentrée de Tom ? = How was Tom's first day back at school 
C'est bientôt la rentrée = School is restarting soon

Aurélie Drouard · Answer

Bonjour Kay et Chris !
Indeed, "la rentrée" is the colloquial term in French to talk about going back to school and also going back to work after a holiday break. Here, I agree with Chris that "Comment s'est passé le premier jour de retour à l'école de Tom ?" is a correct sentence, though quite cumbersome in French. So to remove any unnecessary complication in this low-level exercise, I've now added a clear hint to use the word "rentrée" :)
I hope that's helpful!
Merci et bonne journée !

Chris Wirt · Answer

The only thing that rubs my ear is the order of "de Tom" and à l'école. I would switch that around: Comment s'est passé le premier jour de retour á l'école de Tom?