Neue Stifte, neues Maeppchen: new German school thread

[finknottle]

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.

Hey Bolshy! Glad someone's interested - most run screaming
I am not on MN this morning, oh no...
Well, maybe a quick peek while my brain cools down, have been preparing for a school meeting tonight and wow, get this spelling:

Schulträgeraussschusssitzung

My eyes hurt.
Will happily witter on endlessly discuss all about schools another time.
Don't slope off

Bolshy, we're not that bad! Feel free to join in, the more the merrier - and lets face it - we need some merry on this thread!

By teh way I've found a really easy works-every-time muffin recipe and I'm going to do a round of vanilla and a round of chocolate ones - luckily we parents don't have to appear at school, the dc are selling the cakes themselves at break time to the other dc. Phew..I do have to go to the weihnachtsbazar at dd's school on Friday afternoon though. That will be hard, I usually pass out on the sofa on Friday afternoon as the week is so exhausting. They had better have Glühwein on sale.

Thanks finknottle and admylin, I'll hang around and give you lots of sympathy for having to wrestle with the German school system. And the Neue Schlechtbleibung.

Glühwein? Remember this is a big plus of life in Germany. At the various school Christmas fairs here all that is on offer is nescafe. And this is not enough to offset the stress of having to go to one school fair on Friday evening and the other one on Saturday afternoon. Still life in the UK has got better since Lidl and Aldi (sad but true) have brought us Lebkuchen usw.

Did any of you read the latest PISA results? We've just left Berlin and have moved to one of the states quite low down on the list. Saxony came top of the list and the most shocking thing was that there was a 2 year difference between the top ones and the bottom ones I think a national curriculum might be a good thing to start with if the Germans are thinking reform.

Hi everyone, hi there and welcome Bolshy. Where were you in Germany?

You know I can't get into Lebkuchen for some reason, also never acquired a taste for Zimtsterne but I like my Stollen, oh yes I like my Stollen. That's good stuff.

Admylin, I remember an interview with the guy (no idea who he is) in Saxony who was responsible for the Schulreform when they turfed the old system. He was quite down to earth and didn't pull any punches. Said they had to basically fire most of the heads and the older teachers because they were all seeped in the old SED structure and so they could make quite a clean start. Went to Switzerland and Sweden and places like that to get ideas and have introduced a two-tier school system everyone passes through I think - middle school and gymnasium and - OMG grip the arms of your chair tightly - they emphasise creativity.

He also said when the journalist was wittering on about, wasn't it awful all these new private schools everywhere, that tbh if he were a parent in Berlin (!) where the schools are universally crap, he'd do the same.

So are you contemplating a move to Saxony then admylin? Sächsiche Schweiz etc. Never been there in fact

Hi everyone and welcome Bolshy.

When the PISA results were on the news last week they were saying that there was a very good tradition of science teaching in East Germany. There was also the thing about emphasing creativity and they went on to interview pupils from a school in Saxony who were all full of praise for the system. (Well, I suppose they wouldn't show those who thought it was rubbish)

I then asked my students for their opinions on the PISA study and also what they thought needed to be changed. Most said the usual things like better qualified and better paid teachers, smaller classes, more modern classrooms etc. Interestingly none of them thought that there was anything fundementally wrong with the 3-tier system.

All thought that standards had risen but that in BW at least this had been achieved simply by pushing dc much harder right from the 1. Klasse and getting them to do more homework. I don't think the methods have changed in about 50 years here.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. I lived in Freiburg in Breisgau for about 3 years in the late 1980s. One year at university and then another two working. Have used my German (and French, although that is now very, very rusty and I don't used it at all) in a variety of different ways since, but for the last 8 years I've been a freelance translator based in the UK. dh is also a freelancer working from German into English and spent a few years living in Nürnberg. Have German and Swiss friends in the town where we live and we used to have a German-speaking toddler group (all kids too old now and mums too busy with work and stuff - sadly for my ds as he is still pre-school age).

Er, Freiburg im Breisgau. I don't work into German...

TESTS - AARGH, people in the UK who complain about SATs should really experience this German/Austrian system!

Ds1 is in the 3rd class in Volkschule. On Monday he had a Maths LZK, today was a reading comprehension, Friday is Deutsch LZK (about 40 words, verbs, mitvergangenheit, sentences etc etc), then today another letter to sign for the Sachunterricht test next week - the list they have to learn is endless
compass,
animals,
some Austrian history
Austrian provinces/counties and major towns,
general facts about Austria
I can't remember the rest - there are 10 areas to learn.

Does this sound normal for the 3rd class?

Would be now as well when the skiing starts this weekend, he's really going to want to be in revising - he's 8 for goodness sake

OK rant over

Debinaustria, that sounds alot for Sachunterricht. My 2 had their 3rd year schooling in Berlin which was abit of a joke so maybe other areas of Germany they do abit more. Ds had to learn abit about animals, hibernation and what they eat and abit about Berlin and German states and their Hauptstädte. In the first test they all got such bad marks that the teacher said she would give them a 2nd chance a week later - then she wrote half the answers on the board

Dd had even less come to think of it she didn't tell me about any Sachunterricht test. Sigh, we're struggling with spellings here. Dd can't spell even though we've practised so many times she'll always make the same mistakes.

Ds is having problems with English. He had a translation test and had to translate Auf Wiedersehen so he wrote Bye. That was a minus point, I presume teacher wanted to see Goodbye , then he wrote I'm in year 5 but year was marked wrong (y instead of Y) and loads of silly little mistakes.

Admylin - they are sooo picky when marking aren't they?

I think so, and it doesn't do anything for the dc's confidence. A bit of praise now and then instead of this stress would do them good and get more out of them.

Help again!

Ds brought this letter home yesterday - from the English teacher: leider muss ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass Ihr Sohn bereits wiederholt keine Hausaufgaben angefertigt bzw. Unterrichtsmaterialien im Fach Englisch vergessen hat. Then bla bla bla about how it would be in the intrest of your dc to make sur ethis doesn't happen again, Lernerfolg etc.

After the initial shock and I could speak and breathe again ds swore to me that he hadn't forgotten anything and she hadn't asked him where any homwork or item was.

Anyway theer was a slip to sign that I'd read the letter so I didn't sign it but wrote on the back: DRINGEND! Ich bitte um Rückruf. Ich möchte erfahren um welche Hausaufgaben bzw. Unterrichtsmaterialien es sich handelt. Mfg .

Actually I felt like phoning her straight away but I don't have a contact number for her. Did I do right? If it turns out that she mistook ds for someone else how will I know she hasn't already got him mixed up with someone in her head. I need to make sure she hasn't got a black mark against his name in her Klassenbuch don't I?

I think you definitely did the right thing. If she has made a mistake then, yes you should make sure he hasn´t got a black mark in the Klassenbuch. Hopefully she´ll get back to you after teaching today and you can find out what is going on.

I hope she phone stoday so I can get it out of my mind. If not I'll be wondering all weekend. I hate things like his especially when I put so much effort into making sur emy dc always do homework and revise and study.

The latest thing that bugged me: Ds's class has decided they need a Klassenkasse so we have to send 20 euro in which make sa total of 660 euro. I sthat not a bit much for a Klassenkasse? I mean we have already payed extra for music, photocopy money, cake donations, we buy all the books, payed for transport when needed and text books, pencils, pens etc ..what are they planning on doing? Treating the dc to an icecream or two on an Ausflug? Still too much.

I think you did the right thing, admylin. Best to get to the bottom of this straight away imo. Mind you I can't talk because I am putting off speaking to ds's teacher about his behaviour. Actually I have requested (via a note in the Hausaufgabenheft) that she should phone me but so far she hasn't and I haven't chased it up. Officially we're not supposed to have her phone number as I think she got fed up with parents phoning her last year. I have got her e-mail but would prefer to speak to her in person.

20 euros sounds like a lot imo. I paid 10 euros each for dd and ds. Education is expensive here, isn't it? I spend a fortune on replacing pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners etc. which dd loses within 5 minutes of putting them in her Mäppchen. Not to mention the amount of Prit stick they both get through. Makes me wonder if they are inhaling it!

Admylin - have you heard anything from the teacher?

Deb, Austria sounds just as bad/worse than D. Nightmare for all but the academically fit or obsessed.
I won't depress you all (at least tonight...) about the new Grundschulordnung in R-P which is such an improvement. Wish it had come into effect for s1 & s2 but still. Far fewer Klassenarbeiten, in fact, no longer even called that, instead: schriftliche Leistungsnachweise. Ahem, yes, but the focus has shifted away from test, test, test, Note, Note, Note. New Zeugnisse too.

Admylin, if it's the first letter home AND it is for your s and not a mistake, don't panic. Plenty of time to sort things out though I do know how shocking it can be.
Does your s have a Hausaufgabenheft? I got so fed up of notes, letters (even had one hand delivered...) about sodding homework that our house rule is that if the boys forget to write it down or forget books or forget to do the homework, then no PC/PS/DS/TV or friends (unless already arranged which wouldn't be fair on friend) on that day. We are talking 2 boys forgetting HA every other day. Things are much better now. I was sick of the sound of my own voice tbh.

I am so mad at ds. I decided to meet him from school to help carry his mega heavy bag and big case with trumpet in. I met him half way and first thing I asked him 'Did you deliver that note?' and he pulled itout of his jacket and said he wasn't allowed to knock on the staff room door as the teachers don't like to be disturbed so he couldn't deliver it. I asked him why he didn't give it to his Klassenlehrer to put in the other teacher's postfach and he just shrugged.

I didn't strangle him but I was really fed up with him to say the least. I need techniques for more assertiveness for him. I don't want him to be one of those sleepy dc who you feel like shaking and shouting wake up. He must be entering puberty, it's got to be that...OMG if this is just the start.

OMG I got a reply about the supposed missing homework:

Wenn ich bei jeder fehlenden Hausaufgabe auch noch dokumentieren würde, um welche Hausaufgabe es sich handelt würde ich wahrscheinlich Probleme mit meinen Unterrichtsstoff bekommen - die Striche stehen berechtigerweise hinter ..... Namen - soviel kann ich Ihnen versichern (das gilt übrigens auch für Teilhausaufgaben und Materialien) Mit freundlichen Grüßen Frau...

So what do you do when you get that sort of letter? Is it because I'm translating it that it just sounds rude ? I had asked her to phone me but she just scribbled this on the back of the slip that I sent in.

Admylin
You are not wrong. The reply from the teacher was very rude. She surely knows what homework has not been done. Don't tell me she is sooo overworked that she could not find time to drop you a note or phone you. The only thing that might have annoyed her about your note is the DRINGEND which can sometimes sound a bit rude, IMO. Do you have an email address for her? I would be tempted to send her an email sayingbthat, while you understand her tight schedule (ha!) that your ds has only recently moved to the school and might need some extra support at home. Which you can only give if you know where he is failing.