And a special thread for German schools that drive their pupils to suicide attempts [bitter emoticon]

[Nighbynight]

dd got her uebertrittszeungis from the hauptschule earlier this week. Everyone else who was trying got unconditional 5th yr HS -> 6th yr RS - except dd, who got 5th yr RS, IF she passes the 3 day exam in june. It is cat and mouse torture for dd.
the difference between going into the 5th yr and 6th yr of the realschule is ONE BLOODY MARK in ONE BLOODY SUBJECT, but a huge impact on the child.
yesterday, dd cut herself and says she doesnt want to go on living. She is 11 FFS -I am f*g furious.

And to top it all, ex h is piling on the pressure, by putting in a court action to try and get the ds's, and he has made them promise that if the court asks them who they should live with, they must say Daddy. They are pretty distraught as well.

I have f*g had enough.
bayern best school system in germany - ha ha.

[SSSandy2]

is there any feasible way you could get her to BErlin for year 6? They'd take her in the English stream for year 6 at our school and I DO like our school (geez cf to the dreadful Catholic one last year!). No one goes from our bilingual to Hauptschule as far as I know. It's either on to the bilingual Gymnasium www.schiller-gymnasium-berlin.de/ or the bilingual Realschule www.peter-ustinov-schule.de/ . Other than that there's the Nelson Mandela Gesamtschule (so all streams through to Abitur) germany.english-schools.org/nelson-mandela-state-international-school-berlin.htm and the German-American JFK www.jfks.de/if your dc were down for the American high school diploma stream (you have to choose Abitur or HSD). I think they'd all be better secondary options than those you have there tbh.

Dd would belong absolutely because the English stream kids are similar in background mostly and the German stream kids strive to attain bilinguality in English. She would be so much happier. I think you would all be. I'm not the best advocate of Berlin, it's not my kind of place as you know, but it sounds better for your family than where you are.

What type of engineer are you NN?

[Nighbynight]

Have just heard that ds1 has not got a place in the montessori school next year. So a great end to a great school year, failure across the board. We have not advanced at all since this time last year.
I am so tired of trying to motivate discouraged children and seeing them falling time after time.

bero, thank you for the offer. I do feel that dd needs some encouragement. I am quailing at the thought going through it all again, tbh. Unfortunately her nachhilfe tutor recently started a full time job. She is very good, and I didnt want to upset dd by changing, so we settled for evening sessions, but dd is not a night bird. She really just needs to "get it" with the revision.

Sandy, the bilingual setup sounds great. There is nothing like that here. Lots of posh private schools (1600 euros a month) in schlosses in the alps. Im a mobile telecom/a-gps engineer.

[fortyplus]

This is terrible - I feel so sad for you and your DCs. I know nothing about German schools, but I did wonder... there used to be loads of US and British bases in Germany, so there must be English spreaking schools to cater for the servicemen's children? My sil & bil were there when their dd1 was small and she went to a kindergarten on the base, but that was about 10 years ago.

[Nighbynight]

hi 40+ thank you for the suggestion - we are fully integrated members of teh community though! (no bases round here actually). It is not just a foreigner issue - even my colleagues, who are all ex-gymnasium germans, have had similar problems with their children in the school. The whole system is a disgrace and needs changing but wont be any time soon, because all the teachers in the parliament block any reforms. there is also huge snobbery around the gym, and people who went successfully through the system dont see why it should be changed, and naturally, they tend to end up being teh ones in power.

[fortyplus]

I suppose it would be a bit like trying to abolish the private system here? Half of parliamentv went to Eton so it's a non starter!