Neue Stifte, neues Maeppchen: new German school thread

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Am starting in positive manner as we're 7 weeks into the new school year and all 3 of mine are settled and happy.
Well, d won't be if she does have head lice and has to stay off because she loves school so much.
S1 is in the second year of secondary & still thriving. Is class prefect for the first time which was a great ego boost.
S2 is in Y4 & has been doing better in class but his test results are still lousy (unfortunate choice of phrase if we are lice-ridden) and his teacher is convinced it's the language issue. He's trying harder which is a good sign. He lost the prefect election by 1 vote to his best friend and was chuffed to bits to be his "deputy" and that so many voted for him.

Had forgotten how wonderful the "erste Klasse" is.

THey changed the law about starting age though admylin (at least in Berlin) and now all dc have to start school in September of the year in which they will have turned 6 by Dec. So dc born Sept-Dec have to start school in Sept although they are not yet 6.

Well anyway, wouldn't get too bothered about all that. I think you have some concept of what you can do now if you don't plan on making any drastic changes.

You've thought you could

1. speak to the teacher about getting her to repeat a year and hope that helps
2. employ a Hausaufgabenhilfe and hope that makes a difference by May and if not try forthe Gesamtschule

So with that under your belt , I think you can switch off for a week and try to enjoy having a break and doing some nice relaxing things with the kids.

Interesting about the starting age in Berlin. Here the cut-off point is September so all dc are 6 when they start school unless you decide to send them as a Kannkind but not many parents choose that option. I think there are plans to change the starting age here too so dc could be 5 when they have to start.

Agree with ZZZen, try to have as relaxing and fun a week as possible with the dc. Weather's not great so maybe lots of trips to the cinema, museums etc.

Not sure why but we only have Today and tomorrow off school so no week long end of term. I'm still thinking about what to do and why I can't manage to tutor my own dc. I mean how do other people homeschool? I bet if my 2 were homeschooled they wouldn't learn a thing.

when it comes to maths, I think soem people have the ability to do abstract thinking and it is just a gift. THey grasp it easily and can get ahead with whatever system is employed.

Other dc don't have this ability at a young age so struggle hard with maths. They learn a method of doing a particular task and drill it but never really understand the principles of what they are doing. The more this progresses and the more different tasks they are required to learn off by heart and drill, the more lost they become.

I do (want to) believe that almost every dc with very rare exceptions can be good at maths given the right system for them. I am delving into this and hunting around a bit myself atm.

Two days off is a bit miserly.

Well I sort of wondered too if dc become reliant on mum fixing it at home if you work with them in the afternoons a lot, so they perhaps don't concentrate so hard in class and try and get it there and then, knowing you will be going over it at home anyway IYSWIM. Maybe they just switch off and day dream a bit in class. Not specifically yours admylin, I'm thinking all dc who are tutored a lot at home

Yes, I think you could be right. Dd had a lovely maths teacher at the end in Berlin and she sent me a note back then to say dd should do an extra 30 minutes of maths a day and she would monitor her progress. It worked , and when she got her 2 in maths it was so encouraging especially for dd. That's what has made me so fed up with the teacheing here, all she needed to do was send me a note to say dd isn't up to standard, needs to practise a, b or c.

I feel let down to be honest. I even stressed at the last meeting that I was willing to do extra work, send her to extra classes etc. Her only response was when your dd feels she isn't following everything then she should ask to come to Förderunterricht so the child gets to decide? Anyway, at home dd seems to be able to do everything.

Hia just popping in. I couldn't homeschool either. No patience and thick as chips

One Q - on Wednesday I've gotta take ds3 to his Schuleintrittuntersuchung - does anyone kow - do I have to persuade her he's not Schulreif or will she take my wishes into consideration? Is it the case that if he is declared reif he will have to go, or can I refuse to send him even if she declares him reif, or do I have to really work on convincing her he isn't?

Do I need to worry about this untersuchung?

No, I wouldn't worry but then on second thoughts you're in Bavaria so it could be different to the rest of Germany. This question might be answered on Toytown if you're up to getting afew nasty answers too (not the friendliest of places , but a big Munich section)

When we went dd totalyl failed teh test but wa sstill allowed to go to school early so I guess it's just a formality. How about bribing your ds to pretend he only understands half of what they are saying?

I think you can be upfront with the doctor Ernest and say you are leaving so you don't want him confused with the extra language since he then has to re-start schooling in English such a short time afterwards and you feel his language skills are not up to it. You could say something about maturity I suppose but the thing is your dc is there with you at the time and well I wouldn't want to say anything negative about my dc in front of my dc IYSWIM.

Frankly I don't see how it is any skin of the doctor's nose if your dc doesn't spend a half year in school in Germany before you leave.

Tbh I blew my nut at the doctor at dd's Untersuchung and she was a quivering wreck so maybe I went overboard. Someone called when we were in there and she went "es geht jetzt WIRKLICH nicht, wirklcih nicht". She seemed utterly terrified of me. No idea why. Maybe I'm more formidable than I think I am!

of F her nose

you've got me scared

Ernest - I read your dilemma, but don't know anyone who's been in this situation.
Could you say that you are worried how he will cope with the school, because you dont speak german at home, you'd rather he had another year to get better german in the Kiga?

admylin - we have 5 NH sessions for ds1, and 3 for ds2, so there's usually someone who's homework is faltering. Also, ds1 is trailing so much, that he usually doesnt finish his homework at the NH session. Last night we were up until 12.30 am with it. I know it's awful, but happens often. I darent admit it to his teacher, or we shall have armies of psychs and social workers around us. He point blank refused even to think about homework over the weekend. He hates school so much, that he just wants to blank it out at the weekends.
Anyway, to answer your question, I think it depends entirely on your situation and the children. I get home at 5.30, tired after 10 hours driving/working, so I really dont want to start on 3 sets of homework.
I do think the children respond better to their NH tutors than they do to me, but both tutors are fantastic motivators.
There was a thread on mn last year, where people admitted that they found their own children harder to teach than other people's, which was interesting, and I certainly related to that. I am not especially good as a teacher.
Perhaps the answer is, that if it's working for both of you, then tutor them yourself, but if it isnt working, dont feel guilty about paying a professional to do a better job than you can. Education isnt the same as general parenting, it is a separate job.

Thanks for that Nighbynight, the teaching/parenting comparision works for me! I need to convince the dc that a tutor would be better, they are against the idea at the moment.

I was seeing child psych for ds, getting adhd dx, and was talking with him about trying to teach him to write in English & how difficlut lessons were & he said ideally best if not parent (I know lots of parents sucessfully HE) but he recommended trying to get a tutor rather than do it myself as it often met with risistance from the child, they don't want their parent to suddenly become their teacher. note ll the marrieds who have huge problem with their spouse teaching them to drive. It's normal. Many kids have better experience with a tutor than parent. I know for me it goes really badly me trying to teach my kids (and I am a trained prof teacher!)

Why not persuade them to give a tutor a trial?

Offer tutor or you & they'll be biting your hand off for the tutor

I couldn't teach my dc either. I have the patience of a saint when I'm teaching other people's children but as soon as I try to explain anything to either of mine tempers start to fly and there's a meltdown of some sort - usually on both sides

Possibly I could do it in a genuine homeschooling situation where all the pressure from school was taken away but even then I think I'd slowly go mad. And anyway that's not an option here.

I have thought about the tutor thing and I'm going to have to get one for ds in German for sure and try dd with a maths one. H found out about the reports yesterday but only because his assistant at the lab had asked him how his dc had done in their reports. She must have dc of her own and knew it was report holiday.

Funny thing is he nagged but didn't flip as expected. He did nag along to himself for 10 minutes as we had all gone in to different rooms! It was abit like a stuck record.

Still haven't talked about the tutor problem though. He still reckons I should be able to help ds with his German but as good as my German is, I've reached a point where I can't give ds good advice and he always corrects anything I write in German too.

I can't always help dd with her German. Yesterday she had an excercise on tenses (German tenses are a lot easier than English ones) which was easy and I'm quite good still on endings, from having them drilled into me for 0'Level German many years ago. I get completely lost on spellings though, mainly because they keep changing the rules!

Can do basic maths but I think I soon won't be able to help dd with her maths hw.

I can still help dd in her year 4 Deutsch and up to now have managed the maths for both of them but ds starts on some Bruchrechnen soon which I will only be able to follow at the beginning. It's Simultaneous equations that I never 'got' in school so dreading that coming too!

Oo, I quite liked simultaneous equations at school. Wouldn't have a clue how to solve one now though.

I suppose having dc at school does keep one's brain active to some extent!

Another thought about tutors. One of mine is a friend of ds's teacher, in fact she recommended her. I am not sure this is a good thing, as if they turn against ds, there are 2 of them together. I mean, if they start to say that he is not doing well, can't concentrate, should go down the year, should see a psychiatrist etc.

In the UK, schools are supported by teaching assistants. Here, there are no teaching assistancts, and the school is supported by its own social worker and psychiatrist instead. Crazy.

I am pondering the eternal dilemma again, whether to return to the UK, but I keep reading such depressing stuff on the bbc. Even small things like councils uprooting nice period lampposts from normal streets and re-locating them to posher streets parts of town. To them that hath, more shall be given....it just seems symptomatic of all that's wrong with Britain.

It's difficult to decide - I want to move back too main reason: to get out of this old fashioned, rascist school system and to give my dc the chance to grow up with family around and the unconditional love they get from them is 100 times better than getting on with the nice neighbour or having a couple of school friends. They'll always mis sout on that if we stay here. Even in Texas last summer h's extended Indian family accepted were lovely to us and even though meeting for the first time I could tell I could trust the older cousin to look after my dc as they would a brother or sister.

Anyway, back to the subject! Nighbynight, how often does your ds sit up so late to do homework? Maybe I'm wrong in thinking after a certain time they have to go to sleep, to rest. I know h thinks they should sit all night and study and get A's only but that's because he did that as a child. I sat up late when I was learning for exams but not at their age. I was 15 before I had to study like that.

I don't think I'd want to return to the UK at the moment. We couldn't afford to live in an area as nice as where we are now. All I seem to hear about the area of London we lived in is knife attacks and rampaging teenage gangs. And sink schools.

I agree, there are enough depressing reports from Britain to make me think twice about moving back.

I'd be moving back to the heart of the Lake District so abit of a different picture!

That's true! I could imagine moving there although it would be a long way from my family.

I am not close to my family, if we go back it will be purely because of the schools. Maybe I should change jobs and try to become a teacher, then we could live in a nicer part of the country than a sink estate on the m4 corridor, which is all we'd get at the moment.

admylin, dd who is in 6th class doesnt sit up so late (if shes well organised). ds is 4th class, he is up late most nights. But this is because he hates everything to do with school so much, that his brain refuses to think about it until it is much too late. He is doing a motivation course on saturday mornings. Sounds awful, I know, to pay someone to motivate my child, but he is just so low, and his tutor is full of wonderful, dynamic ideas to get him on teh right track. I am at my wits end.
I think he should be in bed sleeping by 9pm latest at his age (he has always been a night owl, and rarely slept before that), but if I send him in without homework, he will just be scolded and punished even more, which will make him even more negative about school, or pushed into the class below, or to the forderschule, which basically means the end. If he gets his books out earlier, he just sits and looks at them. The motivation course is to try and break this cycle by other means, as it's proved impossible to force him to do homework in time.