German mums - need some urgent help on baby items!

[thequietone]

Hi,
I've got 3-4 weeks until baby No.2 is delivered. We gave away all our important baby stuff before leaving the UK to friends who needed it at the time. I'm trying to order, either through Amazon or Baby-Walz, a moses basket and stand. What would this be called, or do they even use these for newborns in Germany? Urgent help is required as this baby's going to pop any moment!!! PS. I DO have a cot for the next stage of sleeping.

i am trying not to panik if ds enters a prob in the next attempt in kg

Feel a tad sick if i start to think about it

Would i be mad to push for a move or really cross everything when he starts

It is sad isn't it berolina. Ds went to a school in the south for 1 year that was supposed to be integrationschule or something and the school got extra funding and an extra teacher but infact all it was, was 4 dc with downsyndrome, in a small room (looked like a broom cupboard with a window) and they were totally apart from the other children, had all lessons together and were brought and picked up by a special mini bus - not my idea of integration.

that's appalling admylin really appalling.

My 9yo nephew, Y4, is being threatened with a Haupt- or Sonderschulempfehlung. He has ADHD and is very bright and engaging. It would just be the wrong, wtrong, wrong environment for him - IMO Real with some decent support would be right, possibly moving to gymn. Oberstufe later. But they only seem interested in how many bloody 2s and 3s he has.

It all has to do with money. Funding is the big thing with school heads from what I've figured out. If they take on this integration class they get so and so much more money and who knows if they use it for integration purposes or for a new set of drums/tools/gymnastic mats...
Here in berlin I've found out that our dc's school was faced with possible closure so the headmisstress (thinking of her job of course) applied to become one of the Europaschulen. They got portugese which the head has/had nothing to do with at all, she acceppted so it kept her school open but she's not really into it, leaves it up to one or two portugese/brazilian exchange students to supply the langauge practise and she hasn't even got a bi-lingual secretary to communicate with the many Brazilian parents who don't speak German.

I sympathize, berolina. Ds1's SEN is mild but the primary school were so intransigent and hostile.

There are a couple of boys I know who are ADHD and are regarded in the village as delinquents One had an accident near us and I went to help and called his parents and notified the school etc. His mum was so surprised I took the trouble.
Weird.

It feels a bit strange reading this thread. It is like opening a door to a different Germany, one that I have never experienced before.

I had no idea that the provision for children with SN was so different from UK. I do know that there are a lot of Sonderschule (a friend is Sonderschullehrerin) but it never occured to me how dividing they are.

So far, our experience of living in Germany has been positive. We have been very lucky with our kindergarten, and the school where DD will go after the summer seems to be ok.

I am hoping that we move to Geneva this year, but I am not desperate to get away from Germany, I like living here.

Do all children with SN get sent to a Sonderschule then?

There was a little boy in DD's kindergarten group last year, he had Down's and they had to decide which school to put him to. I must ask what they decided in the end. He was a lovely boy, I taught him to say "I am Tim" in English. His mum was so surprised as he hardly spoke in German.

admylin
Thanks for the link to the Foodfromhome company. I did not know that they had a van service. Might be worth a trip to Neuss or MG.

Btw,
We have been buying Heinz beans in the supermarket here recently. Is it my imagination, or are the beans not as good as they used to be? DH wondered if they have a company in Germany that use a different recipe. They are not as tomato-ey as they used to be, and the sauce is runny-er.

geekgirl in a way I can understand your dh's frustration if he feels he can provide a better standard of living for his family in Germany. Having a bigger, better built home would contribute to your whole quality of life but it wouldn't compensate for worrying about your dd's school-life.

I doubt very much that the seperation of dc with SN into Sonderschulen is intended to be in any way unfair to those families. The logic behind it I think lies in the German tradition of specialised professional training. A Sonderschullehrer has been through a specialist course and is therefore qualified to teach dc with SN. A teacher within the ordinary state system has not been exposed to this training so would feel unqualified to attempt it. I could well imagine that Sonderschulen would be located in "nice" areas and with better facilities than the other schools.

There is a hearing/seeing impaired school near my dd's and we used their swimming pool once. It's the only school I have come across here with its own pool for instance.

I think you would need to go and have a good look around the Sonderschulen that your dd might attend and try hard to get a feeling for the place. What might be good for you is having contact to families who are experiencing similar situations to you and will understand you. What I find a little sad is that in your current school/community your dd belongs and is accepted. It would be very difficult for me to give that up too in your place.

It will depend a lot too on where in Germany you were to settle. You know yourself that someone living in the centre of Glasgow will make very different experiences to someone living say in Devon.

I think that the German govt does try to make a lot available to help families with a SN dc. There are family Kuren, organisations which organise holidays and so on and many other clubs/Vereine.

My dd goes horse riding here for instance:
www.reitsportverein-maifeld.de/angebot.htm

scroll down to the bottom where it explains how they work with the disabled , if you can read German