Based on an ethnographic study in a child protection programme providing daytime activities to adolescents in care who have left school, this article looks at the way in which these young people’s trajectories in the care system and in the school system interact and combine, which allows us to understand the breakdowns in their relations with these different institutions. These trajectories are marked by unorthodox behaviour, and relationship tensions and conflicts, especially with peers. This leads to breakdowns in their relationship with both school and child protection institutions, which mirror each other.