German Schools

[finknottle]

Get it off your chest

There are, as anywhere, good and bad aspects to the school system.

So if you want advice, help or an embittered rant - feel free.

On a postive note - anyone see the thread on Primary about security? I've just taken dd to kg and on the way back wanted to drop off a school library book ds2 has had since before Christmas and forgot again.
All I did is walk in, went to his classroom and left it on his PE kit so he'll see it at break.

No one worries unduly about security here. The caretaker has an office (all glass) outside the main building but he's rarely in it.

Is it only village schools? Looks so odd to me to have a school "locked down".

Doesn't sound good - fingers crossed.

I'm sounding a bit cryptic here, I know, I'm writing you a mail finks.

Right ho.

omg admylin I read with horror your story about the teenager emigrating back to blighty. My children are always saying they want to go back. I think they are thinking about the school, but if we go back we'll be stuck in poverty in a tiny slip of ahouse somewhere down a crowded motorway from my workplace, whereas here we've got the alps as our back garden. Would be gutted if they all leave at 16 and it turns out I made the wrong decision.

Now after all the angst with dd1 (she is still in the hauptschule, but her marks are edging slowly up), I have heard one or two stories I dont like about the gymnasium in our town. Rumours that turkish children dont get places there (uncorroborated), and the fact that the girls have a man sport teacher. This worries me because I know that the muslim families wouldnt be happy about that, which rather suggests that either there arent any, or that their views are not taken account of.
Said teacher also teaches geography.

We have got elections on Sunday, and Munich is full of posters saying "kriminelle auslaendere RAUS" Which is one very small step from saying "foreigners out". They want Munich to be in the hands of bavarians, that'll be the 40% or so of munich residents who happen to have been born in By. Nutters. If we all left, Munich would be a DORF. Hopefully they wont get many votes.

NbyN - any word from the court?

Hi, I've come to join you all. Don't know where to begin really. We moved here almost exactly a year ago and have had just about the most stressful year ever, trying to settle dd into her new school.
However, we are going through a bit of a lull at the moment and she actually now quite likes the constant tests (at least 1 a week). Think it'll be different when she goes into y4 in September though.

hi fink
no, we are still waiting. They have asked for a 2nd dr's testament. he is still in jail (life is VERY peaceful!) and I still havent got sorgerecht - must nag the lawyer a bit, I think. Its a sort of lull before the storm.

hello taipo!
whereabouts in germany are you?

btw, it is only fair to add that we have seen the good side of life in Germany recently. Yesterday I started to have implant treatment for a missing front tooth, that I'd never be able to afford in the UK. And it hardly hurt at all!!

Hi NbyN. We're on the edge of the Black Forest near the French border. Agree about health care being good here.

ooh, we used to live on the french side! Deeply envy you being within commuting distance of french supermarkets!

Hi there die Damen. NN So glad to hear he is where he should be atm. Would be good to have the Sorgerecht thing sorted. Is anyone pushing the thing through for you or is it just stranded on the Amtsweg atm?

Taipo, poor you entering dd into school for the dreaded year 3. That must have been a huge shock for her system and yours from what everyone has been sayign here about it. Did she speak German before she started school?

Know exactly what you mean NN about weighing it all up and not seeing any all-round good alternative. So glad to hear dd's grades are moving up. That is FANTASTIC news. Well done both of you.

It's stranded at the lawyer. I need to nag her a bit.

thank you for the good wishes! I have promised dd sushi for every 1 she gets in deutch, englisch or maths probe. We have had sushi for the last 2 weekends, but both times was englisch. Considering she got a 6 in englisch earlier in the year this is improvement!

I am a total sushi addict too! Dd won't touch it though. I so want your dd to show that stupid bl* school what's what. I want to hear the smack of their jaws hitting the floor when they see her end of year grades. I get so infuriated when I hear how kids are held back and kept down when teachers are supposed to ENCOURAGE dc and INSPIRE them with love of learning.

Bet you the 6 in English was because she couldn't get the stupid accent right. Dd was always saying at her last school, why do I have to say pee-PIL when it's people? I don't want to say it like that.

Ds2 told me they were parroting back names of fruit last year. Including that well-known staple, the ay-pel (not ah-pel)

lol at ay-pel. Dh's English teacher at school swore that that round thing at the top end of your body was a 'heed'.

Sssandy, dd started half way through y2 but still a massive shock to the system. She did speak German before starting school as Dh (who is German) has always spoken German to the dc at home. We completely underestimated though how difficult it would be going from using it at home to using it at school. She was totally overwhelmed and the teacher didn't really seem to understand this, just wanted to get her up to the required standard as quickly has possible. How on earth do children who don't speak any German manage?
Oh, and don't get me started on handwriting or homework.

taipo, in Munich they get kicked out of the schools, to spend a year in limbo, with a bunch of other foreign children leaning only german as a foreign language.
yes, just what you want for your 9 yr old dd, to be travelling long distances every day to be in a class full of 12 year old turkish or russian boys, learning to speak german with a foreign accent. . (turkish or russian because most of the poorer foreigners happen to come from those 2 countries, and anyone who has any money uses it to escape these hateful classes)

Alternatively, you can spend c 5000 euros to move out of Munich, where your child will get forcibly put down a year, and spend the rest of their school life a head taller than the rest of the class.

Alternatively you can join all the other foreigners trying to get your child into one of the very few private schools.

dd's teacher's grasp of english is also fairly poor. However, she often marks dd right when in fact she is wrong! She does not do this in any other subject, so I can only believe that she thinks dd must be correct because she is english!
She is a lovely person.

The 6 was for spelling and carelessness, eg nouns with capital letters.

taipo, sorry to hear it isn't going too great. From your experience at schools overseas before moving dd here, what did you find better/what is it that is lacking or so difficult to adjust to here?

My own school days are so far in the past, I find it hard to realistically appraise the system here and wonder if it would be ok if I could somehow approach it differntly or whether we should give up on it and move dd out. It's a permanent worry in fact.

What is worrying me most this week is meeting the head (gulp). Wish me luck that it actually achieves some positive result. For soem reason I am having difficulty thinking positive about it.

Morning, good luck tomorrow SSandy, I hope it goes the way you want it to!

My dd has a project at school the next 2 days, some students of anthropology are coming to do a project on Africa and the teacher said (on Friday) that the dc should all try to draw a picture and write a bit about what they already know about Africa. Dd made a book about the animals of Africa and wrote a little Steckbrief for each animal, stuck a picture in etc, researched on the internet and in animal books, it took her all weekend but at one point she said mum this is really fun, and I just thought look she still has that love of learning that will probably be forced out of her through boredom at school. All they need is a little project on an interesting subject now and then. All her class mates were quite happy this morning, knowing they were going to get something nice to learn and talk about all day. Imagine if they could do a history project one day, dd would jump for joy!

Ds on the other hand tried to talk his way out of going to school this morning. Woke up - mum I've got a headache, I told him to try having a drink and breakfast - then mum my nose is really blocked, sniff sniff (forcing it abit) and then on the way out his leg suddenly was really really hurting (ja, echt) where he has a bruise from playing football but I got him to school in the end. He'll have to try harder than that!

sounds good having the anthropologists in! I thought from what finks said about year 3 further down that they did do all this project work through-out the year just that the fun went out of it when they had the tests at the end of each project. Is your dd not really doing any project work as such normally?

The meeting is Wednesday unfortuantely, poor time to brood

Sssandy, I never imagined that there would be such a difference going from the UK school system to the German one.
It's not as if we were totally happy with things over there mind you. Dd's primary school wasn't great to say the least (poor sats results and high staff turnover) but she was happy there. In Y2 she had a lovely teacher as well as a TA and they did interesting project work, also lots of group work. They were encouraged to write freely and not worry about spelling or handwriting. Imagine! The downside of this was that her handwriting was appalling and her spelling not much better.
I think schools in the UK have moved on a lot from when we were at school, perhaps not always for the best but at least there is an attempt to move with the times. Schools here seem to me to be stuck in time warp.
We've had a right old roller coaster of an afternoon today. Dd came home from school in a fantastic mood because she'd got a 1 for her Lesetest, but then because she was on such a high she couldn't concentrate on her homework and we ended up again with tears and tantrums. She has now finished but I feel utterly drained .
Good luck with your meeting.

Poor dd Taipo, it somehow sounds wrong doesn't it, there shouldn't be tears and tantrums over homework at that age. Learning should be fun - we have often had tears with dd too because she so wants to get it all right and I remember when they had to learn the times tables it ruined the weekend and then the boy from downstairs came up with his sister and she said he'd also been crying over his tables. Very sad and it won't be long - if we don't get out of here soon - till my dc start hating school.

It's of some comfort to find out that dd is not unique in rebelling against the homework. I've spoken to others here who are at their wits end with it all. It put a huge strain on my relationship with dd last year and poor ds just had to fend for himself every afternoon. It is better now and I have learned to keep calm (well sometimes). I quite agree that learning should be fun at that age.

sigh. my children used to love school in france.
They hate it, and hate homework now, by and large. It's all such a grind, and they can only see the threats if they fail, no rewards except getting to the gymnasium whoopeedoo, yet more hard work.

your day sounds completely typical at our house too, taipo.

Now I have a question ladies. Is there any chance of getting ds1 back into his right class, do you think? He was put down a year last year, so is now in the 3rd class, but should be in the 4th.
He still minds about it, the work isnt a challenge (he has just been copying out of last year's hefts, up til now). Now that he speaks german, he is flying. His marks are realschule type, because he gets absolutely no nachhilfe at all, but with nachhilfe he would be getting 1s and 2s, I am fairly sure.

Having coped with dd1#s major crisis, and ds2's recent homework slough, I am just starting to think about getting NH for poor ds1, but would like to fix his problem as well.