German or Swiss German in Swiss schools?

[instantfamily]

We may move to Switzerland at some point. Am keen to put DDs into local kindergarten/school. Would be keenest if lessons were taught in High German, not Swiss German.

Does anybody know which is the case? Is this different by canton? Or by school?

Hi. In Kindergarten it has to be 50-50 now, by law. However, it is best if your child speaks Swiss German fluently before learning High German as socially speaking, Swiss German is the more important language. When they go to school all lessons are taught through standard German (Schriftsprache), which is not quite the same as High German but not far off.

It depends on the canton but most cantons do this now anyway.

In Basel-Stadt (all my statements about Switzerland seem to be preceeded by this qualifier) it's High German (actually Standardsprache) in school and in Kindergarten.

Sauerkraut, How does 50-50 work??

DCs mother tongue is german and I don't anticipate them having any trouble either way, would just prefer for them being taught in their actual mother tongue as we, likely, will move on after a few years there (Zug or Zurich, btw).

It really depends on the area. We are in a village in canton Zurich and my DD's Kindergarten is 40% German, 60% Swiss German - ie on Wednesdays and Fridays the teacher only speaks German and they sing songs and listen to stories in German. In the next town, still in Canton Zurich, Kindergarten is 100% German. School here is just taught in German though.

There's a lot of Germans here whose children don't really speak the dialect, it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Thanks all for your responses.

Swiss German isn't actually a written language, so students have to learn German as a written language. All published material is in high German.

Another Basel mner here, but Basel Land.

My son goes to a bi-lingual school so 1 week in high german and the next week in English. His other classmates are Swiss German speakers but all learning English and High German. This suits us as he is likely to return to the UK system. Another option to consider perhaps?

When we lived in Zug, I did consider local school for our DD. As far as I remember, the actual lessons were given in Schyzerdeutch but they had to be written in Hochdeutch. DD had such a tenuous grasp of any sort of German we didn't send her.

Where we were, the kindergarten was fully Swiss German, and the school was then high German, but of course, the kids still actually spoke to each other in swiss German.

Worked well for ours - they learnt swiss German whilst at kg, so could integrate and communicate with the other kids, then learnt high German at school. They found learning high German easier than the Swiss kids did, cos any German they were exposed to at home ( ie me talking to anybody, or tv or whatever) was high German, whereas the swiss kids were all mainly exposed only to swiss German iyswim.

This was Kanton Zurich btw.

And the Kindergarten was fantastic.