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German school system for children with special needs

6 replies

Seabiscotti · 11/10/2015 11:26

DH has been approached about a job in Germany. On paper it seems like his ideal job.
DS 3.9 currently attends a special needs nursery as he has a learning disability. He is approx 18 months behind his peers. The cause is unknown so we do not know what the future holds. It is most likely he will remain, for the foreseeable, in special needs education.

Can anybody please give me any info on the education system in Germany, particularly in relation to children with special needs. I am after the reality, not the official protocol found on information websites.

Thanks

OP posts:
Idefix · 11/10/2015 12:37

Would recommend posting/searching on toytown forum. At 3.9 ds will go into kindergarten till he is 6, many kindergartens (near me) are inclusive. After kindergarten the state schools differ depending on area. Would you be looking at state or private? You may find there are more options if your dh job comes with financial package for education.

Nth.

Seabiscotti · 11/10/2015 13:00

Thank you Idefix will take a look at that forum.

As yet, we don't have many details. If it wasn't for DS's difficulties, I would be quite keen for him to pursue it.

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Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 11/10/2015 14:37

Hi Sea
I think you need to say which state you are going to to get really relevant information, as education varies enormously by state (and within states there are smaller but still marked rural/city variations in my experience). 2 people living in Germany can both tell you totally different things and both be telling the truth - if you are moving to Berlin, somebody's account of education in rural Bavaria might as well be about a totally different country as it will have almost no relevance, and vice versa.

I'm in rural Bavaria, and although Inclusion is being talked of and broadly an aim, it seems to be rather a long term aim in reality. In my direct experience (rather than anything I've read or heard) children with very mild special needs are included in ordinary state Kindergartens if the parents wish, but there is no extra help in place (an example of this would be my 4 year old's 4 year old friend with an obvious speech and language problem but on other obvious delays - he's toilet trained and doesn't have any care needs different to other 4 year olds and clearly understands questions and instructions, but has a very limited number of words.)

DD's school friend has a younger sister with global delay who went straight to a Förderkindergarten (Special needs Kindergarten) at 3 (having been home full time till then) and is now 7 and at the attached Special School. BUT her parents are expecting to be able to integrate her into the regular state primary from year 3 (which isn't quite UK year 3 - will be next SEpt when she's 8).

There is a feeling here that children can move in and out of special schools, at least in the early years - another sibling of one of my older children started at the state Kindergarten without productive language, did a year there without gaining any more words, then was taken out and went to the special Kindergarten for 2 years and an additional (optional/ add on) Vorschule year before starting primary a year late but in mainstream (where no support is really available and he is apparently doing fine). This has also happened with a Czech boy with cleft lip and palette whom we know, more recently - he had no learning disability but had a lot of time out for operations, spoke not a lot of German, and needed intensive speech therapy - the year and a half he had at a special school (doing 6 months of ordinary Kindergarten then an add on school preparation Vorschule year) enabled him to start primary on a level playing field with his peers.

Quite a lot of children seem to go to special school who almost certainly wouldn't in the UK - but it actually seems to be a good thing, because there are far higher staff ratios and all sorts of things like on site speech therapy which just are not remotely catered for in state mainstream schools, and crucially because there is, for the kids I know anyway, very much a sense that they can aim towards going back into/ into the mainstream system once the more supportive special school environment has helped them catch up.

Our Kindergarten is absolutely lovely but they aren't really equipped to deal with special needs - the staff to child ratios are much higher than in the UK due partly to the mixed age groups (1 adult to 12 3-6 year olds) and the kids are expected to be a lot more independent self care and resolving their own problems wise earlier than in the UK. Mainstream school is unforgiving - its not that the work is hard but its very old fashioned, and the kids are expected to be very organised and self motivated right from day 1. Its hard enough for a fluent German speaking child without special needs, so I would be happier to put a child with limited German and a bit of a developmental delay into a special school to start with here tbh.

Seabiscotti · 11/10/2015 18:25

Thank you "Iliked*, some brilliant advice you have given both here and the other thread posted today.
I will post again when I have confirmed the area, but my initial thoughts are it may be ok.

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Archfarchnad · 11/10/2015 19:06

Some great advice from ILiked, especially about the huge differences between different parts of the country. Germany is really a federal system and the education is one of those things that different states (there are 17 of them, IIRC) can do in different ways.

The Berlin perspective is that at nursery (Kita) level, children with special needs are strongly encouraged to be in an environment with NT kids, in as much as that is logistically possible, but not every nursery is equipped to take children with different needs. The key word here to look out for is 'Integration' (ie into mainstream education) - so a nursery that has special provision for a certain number of children with special needs in a group would be an 'Integrationskita' and that child would be known as an 'Integrationskind' (integration child). Some Integrationskitas pay more or less lip service to special facilities, while others are genuinely well equipped with facilities and trained personnel to offer a good education for everyone there (eg there's one not too far from us with an attached small swimming pool that has lifting equipment and a movable floor so it can be used by kids in wheelchairs. When a child has a diagnosed additional need (and getting a diagnosis wouldn't be the same struggle as in the UK, I think, because there are a series of medical checks from straight after birth up to the teenage years, and any anomalies would be spotted then) the nursery would get allotted extra personnel hours for eg 1 to 1 supervision, but there is a real danger (and I know this happened in one of DD2's nurseries) that staff provision for a child with in this case hearing loss was used to supplement absence through sickness in other groups. The parents were understandably furious!

The whole idea of 'Integration' falls apart at school level, it seems, but special schools are very well equipped. There's a special school on the same premises as my DC's old junior school and it seemed pretty good. Teachers in Germany do an entirely separate degree/training in order to teach in special schools, and there are a lot of classroom assistants and specialists, as Ilike says. I suspect that Berlin is less flexible, though, with children tending to stay much longer in the special school precisely because the mainstream schools can't be arsed to bother claim they lack the facilities.

Seabiscotti · 11/10/2015 19:47

Thanks Arch. I have passed on to DH both yours and I liked comments.
He is going to get confirmation as to where in Germany he would be based. Then we can take it from there.

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