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.

Phew, thanks for answering, that note gave me a real headache.

I asked on languages and Emanka wrote me some good phrases but I like what you wrote ...might need some extra support at home. Which you can only give if you know where he is failing.... Can anyone correct this?

'Obwohl ich vollkommen verstehen kann dass Sie sonst überfordert wären,für den Fall dass meine Sohn unterstutzung zu Hause benötigt, kann ich ihn aber nur helfen wann ich weis wo er Probleme hat.'

Arghh I hate German, and I would so like to tell her that I found her note rude but I have to try and hold back I know, I know.

I wouldn't add that, I'd just send Emkana's note. You need to talk to her face-to-face, phone's no good.
Don't think the bit about her being überfordert would go down v well.

Tone is rude but tbh unsurprising. Can just hear her saying it. Try and focus on preparing for a meeting where you go in to sort it out in a positive manner. The swearing and hair-tearing you'll have to do virtually here with us, cos imbe (in my bitter experience) if you bristle and are confrontational, you're on a downward spiral. Not pleasant.
Happily help with preparing meeting.

That sounds good, but I would write "natuerlich habe Verstaendniss, dass Sie in Normalfall das so handhaben" instead of saying she would be ueberfoerdert. She might think you are being sarcastic :-)

Also imbe, you can break your head for an hour phrasing things correctly for notes to teachers which they glance over in half a minute.

Natuerlich habe ich Verstaendniss

OK, I trust you finknottle! I remember your bitter experience! It's so hard to know what's reaqlyl going on at school though isn't it. I've never caught my dc lying to me but I suppose ds could be telling fibs. I just don't get it especialyl with the English teacher, you would think she would be pleased to have a native speaker in her class but she doesn't seem to aknowledge the fact. My neighbour thinks she might feel intimidated as she is quite a new youngish teacher.

Still I can't stop thinking about those black marks next to ds's name. If there is anything in the world I hate it's when you get the blame for something you didn't do and it's the only thing that got me into fights when I was a school girl. I rang the Elternsprecherin by the way and told her and she was so calm and nice. She's quite experienced as she has a son in year 9 and 3 other dc. She said you won't be the first family to get such a letter and I would just watch over the next 2 weeks and talk to ds too. If I still don't feel beruhigt then I should ask for a Gespräch as the next official chance will be in February.

Problem is as well you don't know exactly what she's referring to.
S has homework, writes (I assume?) in Hausaufgabenheft, "Sprachbuch, Seite 45, Nr. 4-7"
and does it.

But didn't have glue (lost, empty)
or a pencil-sharpener (lost)
or a ruler (are we seeing a theme chez Finknottle here?)

so that's the fehlende Materialien

Then the teacher says, finish the Arbeitsblatt at home, s doesn't hear or doesn't write it down so forgets it.
That's the fehlende Teilhausaufgaben.

If he's writing down all they say, he should keep on top of it. They expect Gymnasium pupils to do just that, have been hearing tales from other mums here.

Actually at one point the Elternsprecher said on the phone, ach, wissen Sie das sind 10 jährige as if to say they expect too much of them and they can't possibly remember everything all the time. She is right but we're in the system now and we won't change it so we just have to try and keep up. In my heart I feel as if I want ds to change to the IGS and get dd in there too.

Thing about the IGS is that he's be in the Gymnasium stream so acadamically he wouldn't lose out.
They have a focus on individuelle Förderung so you could play the Ausländer Karte.
Might work for your d but I think it's not possible to change from Gymnasium to IGS as the latter are over-subscribed.
If you are interested, call and arrange to see the head. Your d is Y4, isn't she? Now would be a good time if so.

acadEmically, even

I want to put them both in school back home, I don't want these fights, stress etc and wait 'til the reports are out in January - I better stock up on the Whiskey.

Do you know what admylin? I know it bristles but I think I would leave it.

You know how these teachers think by now, they are the Force to be reckoned with and you are not to question them. They just expect an attitude of shut up and do as you're told from both the child and his parent. I did sort of expect this would not go well, based on my own experience. They are super-touchy if they feel you are in any way trying to undermine their authority or question it.

I suspect your neighbour is also right. She will not like having a native speaker in her class and no doubt suspects both he and you do not have the respect for her that she feels she deserves. If you pursue this issue I suspect this is the message she will take from it.

It is possible after all ds is not giving her his undivided attention right through the lesson if it is all English on such a low level that it just bores him. He may well be missing things. Do you have the phone number of a friend of his so you can check with the mum for a week or two till ds has got in the swing of writing everything done carefully for her class?

I think she just writes down black marks in her book and then last week she had a hissy fit and sent off a pile of those letters to everyone with black marks. Doubt your ds was singled out.

writing it DOWN sorry not DONE of course. Argh

ZZen you're right. Earlier the neighbour came down and I said exactly that to her. I should just sign everything and hope for the best in furture - and give ds a good talking to about sticking up for himself. He can't have missed much homework though because he's had English after every lesson as I could check back in his Hausaufgabenheft which he keeps quite well.

Sigh, sigh is it late enough for alcohol?

Hi everyone. I suspect, too, that she is trying to assert her authority and maybe feels uncomfortable with a native speaker in her class. Am trying to imagine how I would feel if I taught German (I once nearly did a PGCE but backed out at the last minute) in a UK school and had a German kid sitting in the class. Am also wondering whether she was in some warped way offended that you wrote the note in German - as though you didn't think much of her English? Maybe a bit far fetched but who knows?

Totally understand what you mean about the fights and stress you have to go through here. Most of it could really be avoided imo.

Am having lots of problems with ds atm. Will try to write it all down later to help me get it off my chest.

Never too early for alcohol

It definately helps to get it off your chest on here but what I find good is trying to get German parents to comment too. I found the Elternvertreter very nice, understanding and rather calm (compared to me) so it helped speaking to her on the phone.

Def agree about other parents. I always have a list of ones I'll phone about homework and when my contacts were out & I call someone new with whom I'd had v little contact, I'm always surprised by how pleased they are I called, and witter on about how their s or d did the same etc. Need to cultivate some other mums, ad.
Then if lots have the same gripes, you can tell the rep & have a jolly class meeting!

Prob more difficult in secondary though. When mine started I always knew mums from the kiga so knew which were nicer.

It's a minefield, isn't it? Seems like you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you question the note, you're a trouble-maker of some kind; if you don't and just sign the note, you are basically agreeing that ds did something wrong when you don't think he did.

That would probably have me in quite a state I think. So hard to know how to handle these teachers, they seem to get offended at the drop of a hat which is weird considering what they often dish out.

So what are you going to do admylin?

Taipo, tell us all about ds. He is in year 1, isn't he? What's going on then?

Yes, he's in Y1. The main problem is that his behaviour since starting school has got steadily worse both at home and at school. At first I tried to put it down to difficulty settling in (he hates change of any kind) then I tried to kid convince myself that it was getting better. But it is not. There've been a number of things, such as drumming on the table, shouting out in class, getting into fights with the other children.

Yesterday he put one of dd's tablets in his mouth and started chewing it despite (or because of) me telling him not to. I then told him he wouldn't be able to watch the film I'd promised him earlier and he had a complete meltdown. He was so angry and became quite violent, kicking the walls and throwing things around, although he did eventually calm down and went back to being the very sweet boy that he is underneath all this.

It was a sort of crunch point for me though and I went to see the Kinderärztin this morning and described all the behaviour and she gave me a load of leaflets to take away about ADHS . She did stress that she obviously couldn't diagnose this and we need to get him assessed by a child psychologist asap (easier said than done as they all have long waiting lists) to try to find out how best to help him. It did help me to talk to someone about it though because I have been bottling a lot of this up recently.

I now need to try to speak to the teacher again to find out what really has been going on in more detail and see what she suggests.

I've decided to leave it for now and step back and watch - and try to get some more contact with the other parents. You're all right - I can't win so better not even try to fight it. Ds is getting such bad marks - I'm more worried aboutthat to be honest even though he always does his homework his test results in all subjects are rubbish average 3 (and that's only just).

Taipo, that sounds like you've been having a tough time with your ds. It's good that you've got a sympathetic doctor though, mine used to just laugh everything off. Can your ds remember the move ? Sorry can't remember. How is he coming on with the letters and numbers for grade 1?

God this thread is depressing
Just been reading it to see if there would be a ray of hope moving somewhere else in Germany.

The situation in our town (By) has just got worse.
dd is in teh hauptschule 6th class, getting good marks and expected to go to the realschule at the end of this year.
Except that she apparently cant any more, because the RS has a new head, who has decided to tighten up the rules and end the practise of HS children going over after the 5th class. Have heard this depressing tale from 2 separate sources, but must check it. It is particularly annoying, because the RS advised us last year to wait until this year for the ubertritt, rather than do the stress of a probezeit, but now it looks as though they were just having a laugh.

dd has been offered the possiblitiy of repeating the 5th class, ffs, instead of doing the 7th class!

Cant move elsewhere in germany.
Cant go to france because of s***g ex h.
UK still too expensive, is a last resort (goodbye swimming in the lake, mountain climbing, winter sports etc, hello grotty dump which is all we would be able to afford)

Am going to bed.

Nighbynight - hope things look a little more positive this morning.

I have good news today, ds1 only got 4 mistakes in his last DE LZK after having 17 last time and today is the SU LZK which we've been working on for a week . I am glad it's here at last!!

Dd also got 17 mistakes in one dictation. How id you get your ds to imporove so much? I try to do dictations at home but it doesn't seem to help.

Nighbynight, honestly though, for your dc's education wouldn't it be better to go without the lakes/mountains whatever and move to UK if you could? For a start off they could probably do their first GCSE in year 7 (German) and that would boost their confidence and they'd be much happier with the whole education theme - and you would have less to woirry about maybe leaving weekends stress free to drive to one of the many gorgeous national parks in Uk and enjoy outdoors and mountains! I know of someone who moved back with 2 dc on Hauptschule list and they are top of their class heading for GCSE's and if they want to study and do A'levels no one can stop them. I see our dc slowly getting further away from the chance to go on to university if we stay here. It's not fair .

Ad - I think the teacher actually made the test a little easier, as she gave them a specific text to learn in addition to other unknown sentences.No doubt that next time it will be really hard again but at least ds got a much needed confidence boost.