End of school year in Berlin.

[admylin]

Thank goodness, today we broke up in Berlin for the school holidays and only 2 days to go till we are back in England for 4 glorious weeks of civilization.
I got a list handed from both ds and dd's teachers with all the books we have to buy for the new term, 85 Euro for ds and 80 Euro for dd - then all note books, pens, even drawing paper. Most kids brought a bunch of flowers for the teacher, the school was filled with flowers on all the window sills. Can't wait to get out of here! MN has really helped keep me going when I felt homesick for England .

Hi Admylin, hope you have a really nice break and come back refreshed for the battle.

We've just been given a little initial list which includes things like paintbox, glue, shoebox (?) - and crockery for breakfast. What's that about then? It says it has to be washable. Would have thought they'd eat out of their lunchboxes but apparently not.

Had a great break - thanks SSSandy, how was the einschulung for your daughter? Our school has continued as it left off - driving us crazy!
We got a book list handed out on the last day and I came back from the UK in time to order and pick them up before school started and now the kids who get free books because their parents are on a low income have been given different books to those on the list. Problem is I think we are the only family in ds's class who buys their own books. Of course I have already written ds's name on the ones I bought so I can't even take them back. Hope everyone else has a better organized, smoothly running school!

Hi Admylin,
so you're back in the fray! Glad you had a nice break. We went to Denmark for 2 weeks and I could have quite happily stayed there TBH.

How ridiculous. I can't believe they gave you a book list and that you now have to buy other books! Wouldn't say our school is devastatingly well organised. We still haven't received a book list. Had to pay 40 Euros for Arbeitsmaterial (paper and things for artwork I assume) and buy one notebook for maths which hasn't been used yet. We have a meeting with the teacher next week so all will be revealed then I suppose.

So far so good really. I'm happy with the school and dd is settling very well. She's lucky in that her 2 best friends are in the class and she knew 8 classmates when she started. We are both struggling with the 8am start though. She's also knackered and ravenous when I pick her up at 1.30. It's a long day for the children and it's 2 before we're home and I've heated up lunch.

Very inconvenient for parents, isn't it?

I have got the parents evenings this week too , one on tuesday and one on wednesday - be prepared for a couple of hours of sitting on firstgrade mimi chairs and listeningto people talk about their own child and not letting the teacher talk!
I just found a work sheet done by ds and he had to complete on one half "I am happy when.." and on the other half "I am unhappy when..." and he filled in - happy when I go to England and unhappy when I have to come back here.
He had also hidden it from me as I usually get to see all his work but he had slipped this one to the bottom of the pile on his desk. Poor thing, his big dream is to leave here.

Oh poor lad. That would make me so sad as a mother too. Has anything been decided yet? Do you think dh will be moving to Pakistan and you and the children back to England?

No, he is now trying for permanent jobs after this one in about a year in UK or Denmark, Canada and Australia, any of the english speaking ones would be fine by us!
He has more or less given up on the idea of Pakistan as he is very outspoken and he would just get into trouble with the fundamentalist and religeous side of life over there.
Isn't the new routine strange with school? Lunch after 2 o clock seems far too late doesn't it. I don't understand teh logic of the german system!

Really liked Denmark, Admylin, lovely friendly people with a nice sense of humour. I expect it rains a lot there but they seem to have a nice sense of community and they're so warm and kind to children too. Mind you holidays are always different to the rut of daily life I suppose. They start school even later there - at the age of 7.

Hope something comes up soon that suits dh and you too. It would give you peace of mind and the kids something to look forward to.

I find the routine too hard on kids. I give dd two lots of sandwiches now, one lot with fruit for the early morning meal at school and suggest she grabs another sandwich on her way outdoors for the lousy 10 minute break they get. It works a bit better that way. She's still tired and bad-tempered when I pick her up but no longer desperately hungry.

Apparently they used to have school from 8-12:30 6 x a week but dropped Saturdays. After the PISA scares, they introduced the "verlaessliche Halbtagsschule" which is till 1.30pm. If they keep all the kids there till 1.30, they're entitled to more money from the senate to fund assistant teachers, so that's why they do it. A mother told me yesterday that they are thinking of returning to the old system of 6 day weeks of shorter days.

Honestly how can they expect children's education to improve unless they consider the well-being of the children? What a mad idea to just keep them at school an hour longer so they don't get lunch before 2! If they're tired and hungry they'll get nothing out of that extra lesson, will they? Really think more could be done to make schooling more convenient for families altogether. Mind you, so far so good, everything seems OK and from what I've seen of her, I do like the teacher. Fingers crossed it'll work out!

What was getting you down CF ?

I know, used to come back from a trip to the bakers in a flood of tears. Could never understand what I had done to provoke people. Seems nothing at all is enough.

I don't have language problems here but I still find it a tough place. Individually people can be wonderful and welcome you into their life very easily but it's the total strangers you bump into in the course of a day that really get you down, I place shop assistants at the top of my list.

I always feel so much happier on holiday but then holidays are never real life, are they?

Thank goodness there are places like mumsnet though - I used to be on the phone to my sister or my mum every other day with a "you won't believe what just happened .." storey. Now I can atleast read that I am not mad it is the country I am in (you start to doubt after a while)
My parents are coming over in October an dwhen I told the kids, ds just looked up and said "do you think they will take us back with them?" because once they came to visit and we flew back with them and for the kids it was as if gran and grandad had come over and saved us from a summer in big bad schwabenland!
Any way I had 1st parents evening tonight and sorted a few things out but all parents were mad about lunch being served at 2. Far too late and no logic thinking on school side. My 2 don't have lunch from school but the ones in Hort who stay till 4 or 5 pm go for lunch at 2. SSSandy, so you might have saterday school if it changes, also abit of a short weekend for the kids or not? They need those 2 whole days to relax.

I could do with two days without rushing to get dd to school at 10 to 8! At least it would mean she'd be at home to eat at a normal lunch hour though. I went to primary school from 9-3pm with a good cooked lunch and an hour's lunch break. I really think that is so much better and so much more practical for parents. I don't see why they are so set against introducing something similar here. However, I'm (still) trying to be open minded and see how it goes.

How old are your two, Admylin? It would really worry me if dd was so unhappy here but she was born here and basically hasn't experienced anything else (except on holiday). She's also so young (5) that she probably doesn't pick up on a lot of the things that your ds notices. Would he like the English Football Club, do you think? Friend of mine has her ds and dd there but they train Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings when we can't go.

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Does your school finish at 12.30 then Admylin?

No school used to finish at 1:15 but not always - it was awful I used to have to go for dd at 1:15 and hang about waiting for ds who finished at 2:10 and another day it was the other way round, drove me crazy. Now this year the teachers have decided to do all classes till 2:10 so we get home at about 2:45 but the extra hours that the kids have to stay in school are not filled in by teachers, they have erzieher, who are not allowed to teach (thank goodness because most of them only just made it through their own schooling) which means a waste of time really.
Ds isn't into football really I wa shoping to find soem english /american baseball team but no luck yet. I find it so hard to find where things are going on to enroll them. Even scouts and brownies would be good.

So they don't eat lunch till 3?! Or do they have a break and eat a packed lunch at some stage? (Sorry to sound so food obsessed, this lunch business is really stressing me out, Kindergarten was so comfortable - pick up dd at 3.30 and she'd had a lovely warm meal cooked from scratch with dessert).

Can't see dd playing football either really, it's supposed to be a great social thing though which is nice for mums too.

John F Kennedy School in Zehlendorf offers baseball via their sportsclub. I find it all too American for me there. Don't know why but I don't feel comfortable with it. Think I prefer a more international atmosphere:
sport-at-jfk

I know someone here organises scouts and brownies in English. I'll have to google around a bit. Can't remember offhand where I found that website.

I just emailed the John F Kennedy Friendship Centre in Steglitz to ask whether they know who organises guides/scouts in English. I'll let you know if I hear anything from them. Think Scouts is from 8 and I don't know when Brownies begins but I do remember dd was still too small for it.

Thanks SSSandy, if scouts isn't too far away we would try it especially if its in english! We can get around on our bikes , so any ridable distance in a radius from brandenburger tor ! They don't mind the Ubahn but if its busy they hate it, so do I.

Yes, that means 3 o clock is lunchtime! We are totally out of routine and I am having trouble finding a way to fit things in. As one parent said at the elternabend, after everyone complained about lunch being between 2 and 3 "so now we have to have evening meal between 8 and 9 and at 10 they go to bed or what, poor kids"

What a pain, eh? Madness.

Have you ever been to St. George's Bookstore? I've never got round to it although I keep intending to. It's in Prenzlauer Berg. Woerther Str 27, 817-98333. Bet they have an info board up advertising events in English.

I know dh is from Pakistan so I'm assuming he's Muslim. Are you Anglican? Just wondering because the Anglican Church (St. George) also holds services somewhere in Prenzlauer Berg, Sundays at 6pm. Might be a nice sociable place to meet people even if you're not religious. They meet in the church hall of the Parochialkirche, Klosterstr., right near the UBahn Klosterstr apparently. Never been there, it's too far from us but you'd meet English speaking people who live near you.

Yes dh is from Pakistan but he hates anything to do with religion - he also thinks it is one of the reasons why he didn't get a job in the US when applying before moving to Berlin. But I have also thought of going to one of those english church services just to meet people! There might be some harvest festival or sale type afternoons or something going on soon.
I'm not so desperate to meet english speaking people, it would be nice but if I could get ds to find a good pal he might settle too, dd has found friends at school and in the neighbourhood but ds had to leave his soul mate behind when we left south germany and he has pined for him alot. (they were unbelievable, same taste, same thoughts same toys etc)
Anyway,

No, didn't mean to imply you wanted to make friends for yourself, I've found that I only tend to find out about English language activities for kids via other English speaking mums. Never see anything actually advertised. I know one mum who goes all over the place to various activities and she's my main source. The English toddler group was brilliant that way but we outgrew it a long time ago. Seems the parents at bilingual schools find out so much from each other. Her dd attends ballet, football, singing, piano, Sunday School, riding, summer camps all in English.

Wow your friends dd has a full timetable! I would be happy with one or 2 afternon activities because the rest will be taken up with study. The teacher last night practically said we were going to have to do a lot of work at home if we wanted to get our kids anywhere - seriously thinking I should have moved schools now.
In ds's class there are (out of 17) 6 kids who are good -ds is one thank goodness, 7 of the kids are below average and 4 haven't even got a first grade average, how on earth can 1 teacher cope with a class like that? How the 6 good ones are going to learn anything, I do not know.

Hmm I just know so little about the whole school landscape here but I think you've been unlucky with that school. I'd be tempted to call other schools and see about changing but with these 8 am starts, it is an enormous hassle trekking about town in the mornings, not to mention buying a third set of school books!

She's amazing. She works too, she must spend all day on the Ubahn. I feel such a slouch when I'm talking to her. I like a more comfortable life. All that would be too much for me and for dd too I think.