Thoughts about schools in Switzerland?

[Gipfeli]

( and about schools in Basel specifically)

DS is in his first year in the public kindergarten. All has been fine, he likes it, the teachers seem fine etc. etc. but I am starting to wonder what would be the best thing to do after his Kindergarten years.

He's been in Swiss speaking daycare since he was six months old so has language is not really an issue yet. Some of my concerns for the future are about whether he will need more help with English or more help with the German "Standard Sprache" but I think I've decided to not worry about that and see how his language skills develop. It's easy enough to get him extra tuition in whatever language turns out to be weaker when he gets older.

I have no evidence for being particularly concerned about the state schools here and in fact the school system here is undergoing some reforms which all sound much to the good. But I do periodically look in at that German schools thread and frighten myself!

So I wonder whether anyone has any experiences of state and private schools in Basel(and in private terms I'm thinking the Minerva school rather than SIS or ISB, in case anyone knows what I mean).

I know there are other forums that may have more advice on this question, but I'm impatient so thought I'd ask here whilst waiting for my membership of the other group to be approved

Hallo Gipfeli.

I think that the Swiss and the German schools are very different. I don't have too much experience of either, just a couple of weeks in Germany and 6 months here.

My impression is that the school here is much friendlier and less strict than the German schools. Much more focused on the children than getting through the curriculum.

Our DC are in a state school and we are very happy wiht the school. That may be due to the fact that it is a small village school.

We are not doing any extra language tuition until they are speaking fluent French, then we will assess how they are doing. Many of the other expats here do English lessons, mainly for writing/grammar.

Hi Gipfeli,

Where are you based? I live in Basel (BS). Both my DCs attend the ISB, one in pre-school, one in Kindergarten (ages 4 & 7).

There are probably some more insightful comments by others, at www.englishforum.ch, I know there have been several detailed threads comparing SIS & ISB & Swiss state school systems.

If you'd like my opinion on the ISB, let me know! Sorry, I have no direct experience of the SIS.

MmeLindt, your first sentence is really encouraging!

We've had a good experience of Kindergarten so far for ds, but I don't know whether that's luck or indicative of a general quality. If ds goes to the state school it will be different I think to yours in that it will be an inner city school. Basel-stadt does have some issues but all the official websites are full of the projects etc that they're running. In theory it could be that things are even better here because of some of the "challenges" the schools face. But I don't know how the theory translates into practice...

WantManual.. we're right in GrossBasel, west side. I think we've pretty much ruled out ISB and SIS for many reasons but thanks for offering.

I'd love it if I could see Ofsted reports for the local schools!