Streupflicht und Schneeschaufel - Winterliche Unterhaltung im Deutschem Eck

[admylin]

All welcome, Austria & Switzerland & any German-speaking Leute too

Snow and more snow here in Hannover! Lucky for us we have a Hausmeister to do the Schneeschaufeln every morning.

I saw loads of people slipping and falling on the ice yesterday as I waited on the car park for the dc to come out of school. Looks as if the Stadt has just given up on doing pavements and areas around bus stops.

It's funny to think if we had stayed in Berlin both my dc would still be at Grundschule! It's not a bad idea as they are so much more mature when they do go on to secondary.

Morning all - although I've just realised it's actually afternoon; this is the one day that DD1 stays at school after 11.50, so it still feels like morning!

No, I don't get Fasching either - never have done and never will. The children love it of course, and are looking forward to dressing up at school and Kindergarten next week and to the Faschingszug, but I find it hard to work up any enthusiasm about it.

Hi Blauer Engel - whereabouts in Berlin are you? I spent a couple of years there (in Charlottenburg) and it's where I met DH, but I haven't been back since the DCs were born; I'd love to go for a visit at some point though. I do remember how bitterly cold it used to get after Christmas - not that it's much better in Austria at the moment; we've had yet more heavy snow here too overnight.

We've also had comments about how easy the children will have it at school because they can speak English, which might be true at secondary school but at the moment DD1 only has about half an hour of English a week and it's not graded, unlike virtually all her other subjects. I even had one comment recently that DD2 and DS will be bored in the English lessons at school (not the case for DD1 at the moment at all) - oh, and the general consensus seems to be that DD2 will be bored anyway when she starts school because she can already read...

Where did you live in Berlin, admylin?

Berlin is a ridiculously complex place swinging wildly from one crisis to the next, with locals who are actively proud of their rudeness. I've been here 18 years and it's still a love-hate relationship. But I would go potty in a small village.

We had an email from the parent rep yesterday. Getting to school is turning into an Arctic expedition with ice everywhere. Turns out there is a dispute with the company responsible for gritting the school grounds, and if the children or us have an accident from slipping over we have to inform the head with a precise location of where it happened, because there are some sections where the local authority are responsible for gritting, some where it's this incompetent company, and other parts where the school Hausmeister ought to do it. Grrr, sod the liability issue, what about our kids' safety?

mmm, I think I have a real need to vent at the moment. 18 years of frustration bursting out...

A question for those of you who have kids at Gymnasium already. Dd1 has a place to start in August (7th grade), and apparently there is an Einschulung on the first morning at 10am. Is it a big thing like for the Grundschule? Are younger siblings freed from school for the morning to attend?

Hi alberita, we're in Zehlendorf, along with half the English-speaking community, although we used to live in Prenzlauer Berg pre-kid. We have friends in Charlottenburg, though, and dd1's new school will be near Ernst-Reuter-Platz.

I've heard of cases where bilingual children are unofficially 'freed' from English lessons, ie they come along but are allowed to read an English book rather than joining in the lesson or doing exercises. They then just get a 1 at the end of it all. Presumably that was just very un-self-confident German English teachers who didn't want to be shown up!

It's minus 5 here at the moment but it feels like minus 10.

hi blauerengel - "met" you on some other threads! nice to have you on here too!!

i'm no use with your questions about the Gymnasium - dd is only in the 3rd class! but she is "freed" from her English lessons at the mo - we did speak to the teacher and he made big promises to give her a project to do but he's all talk!! so she either reads or she does work for the other lessons! but thats useful when she does work for the other classes because like Ernest said, she has to work harder in those lessons (although her German is as good (according to the teacher) as the kids who've always lived here!! find that fascinating in less than a year!

our snow has stopped for the mo but i agree its freezing today!!

Ah yes, I remember the directness of the Berliners well BlauerEngel - well, they would probably call it being direct and honest, I saw it more as downright rude (I'm far too sensitive for my own good, not always a good thing in Germany!). Mind you, it wasn't confined to Berlin; the people around Mannheim, where we later lived, could be quite forthright too and I also remember DH getting shouted at in a cafe in Munich for daring to open a window...

I know Zehlendorf quite well as I spent a year at the FU and before that, the family I au paired for had children at the JFK school - it's a nice area from what I can remember (I was last there properly 16 years ago). I used to go out in Prenzlauer Berg (happy memories of waiting hours for the night bus) and know the area around Ernst-Reuter-Platz (especially the cafes) too as DH was at the TU when we met. I'm feeling quite nostalgic now...!

Hi to all the new people on the thread!

BlauerEngel - when my kids started at the Gymnasium the Einschulung wasn't a big deal at all - they just had a short assembly and that was it. I don't know if it's like that at all schools, though.

My kids have never been excused from English class and have never been bored, either. In elementary school the teachers used to use them as "helpers" and in secondary school they have plenty to do seeing that they have to learn the specific vocabulary - not the words they might already know, but the words the teacher wants them to know and that will be on the tests. My boys score really well on tests but have never gotten higher than a 2 in English class because they don't participate enough. In fact our younger son got a 4 last year even though his tests were almost perfect. He knows he has to make an effort to talk more.

is this 'points for participation' a typical gymnasium thing? I've never heard of it. DO they do it at Grundschule too? Is it offical or unofficial? Never heard of it? Is it like Admylin says, and they should aim to say something 3 times each lesson?

Class participation can make up to 50% of the final mark in some classes at Gymnasium. Sometimes it's 40% oral/60% written or whatever the teacher happens to think is right. And they do make little check marks beside the child's name to show how much she/he participated. Three times sounds about right. I try to tell my kids to make sure they at least put up their hands and say something, but it doesn't always work. Ds13 ended up with a terrible mark in German on his last report card because he did poorly on a dictation (where 4 mistakes gives you a 5!) and didn't participate to the teacher's satisfaction. It's hard sometimes...

I think in the elementary schools it's more unoffical but at the Gymnasium they take it very seriously.

4 mistakes gives you a 5!!!!!!!! No, tell me that's not right, please? That's impossibly and unnecessarily erm impossible.

i agree ernest - that must be impossible!! although dd got a 2 in her diktat for 2 mistakes! and one of them was that she didnt put a dot above her "i"!!!! and the other was because she put "den" instead of "dem"!!!crazy system!!

alberita - forthright Mannheimers, oh no! I'm going to Mannheim in April for a work weekend and was looking forward to a bit of relief from the relentless Schnauze. I've always found people in the 'West' reasonably friendly, but that is by comparison with the Berliners of course.

The points for participation thing is used at our Grundschule, but mostly in the 5th and 6th grades where all other Germans are no longer at a Grundschule anyway. I didn't get the impression it was as crass as 3 times a lesson or else you lose points, but I had wondered if it was the teachers' way of marking people down who didn't behave, keep quiet etc. DD1 has always been fairly shy and reluctant to participate, but her 'class mark' is never too bad, I suspect because she's seen as a 'good girl' who doesn't cause trouble.

We've been told at her new Gymnasium the grades will be 40% oral participation, 40% formal tests and 20% written classwork.

Ernest - DD1 did a geography test recently and got 49 out of 50, but that pulled her down to a 1- already. And sometimes there are only 5 marks difference between a 1 and a 4 for maths tests. It's all fairly arbitrary.

Sorry BlauerEngel, I hope I haven't put you off Mannheim now! On the whole the people were quite friendly, with the odd brusque exception, and looking back I had far fewer negative experiences than I did in Berlin - so if you're just going for the weekend, it's quite likely that you won't experience anyone too unfriendly.

I asked my son again and he said that in the dictations they do it depends on what the mistakes are, vocabulary, punctuation etc, but his German teacher says she only gives a 1 when the child has 1 mistake or less (whatver half a mistake would be). After that it slides downward and 6 mistakes will get you a 5 for sure. Probably differs from teacher to teacher and school to school.

BlauerEngel, we lived in Mitte - dh could walk to work to the Charite hospital as it was around the corner and we were aout a 10 minute walk to the Reichstag. That part of Berlin was very clean and safe but not many families with children. If we ever moved back I would want to try a different area.

Is your dd going to Schiller Gymnasium? Looked at that one when we thought we might be staying but then we moved to Hannover.

So, what is the best approach for these parent/teacher meetings this afternoon? Just ask them if they have any tips on how dd can improve in any way? Did you mostly just listen Taipo? Or did you prepare a few questions? You only get 10 minutes maximum per teacher.

We mostly just listened. Ten minutes is nothing really so there is very little time to go into much detail. Most of the teachers did invite questions but the Latin teacher just launched into a ten minute lecture on the importance of learning vocab. It was quite funny really especially as I think he gave exactly the same speech to all the parents.

If you have a lot to discuss then probably best to make an appointment to see individual teachers in their Sprechstunde.

Morning all, and welcome to the new posters.

I have been busy these past few days, getting ready for a party evening last night. I had 9 women around for an American dice game called Bunco. We meet once a month at someones house. I go for the wine and the chat, the game gets in the way a bit.

It is snowing again. Meh.

Ernest
Glad to hear that you got some good advice. I would just put his name down in the new school. Did you get a written Empfehlung from the Kita? When we were in Germany the kita and the school did communicate so you might be better saying something when you put his name down, that you know he has had problems in kita but you are confident that he will be fine in school.

Whatever you do, do not even consider Sonderschule. My nephew went into a Sonderschule after Grundschule and it was absolutely awful. They have taken him out and put him in a state subsidised Montessori and he is doing so well there.

We had our Elterngespräch with DS's teacher this week. I am quite chuffed that I managed without an interpreter, and I understood most of what she was telling me. DS is apparently 'un individualiste' - is that a nice way of saying a stubborn bugger?

I was quite impressed that the teacher spent so long with us, just over 30 mins.

Well done mmelindt! The thought of having to go to Elternabend in yet another language would finish me I think! Do they have a strong accent in Geneva as compared to the classic school French we learned?

Think I'll just go and listen to what the teachers have to say then, it's just the maths teacher and the english teacher. Dd is coming too but I'm thinking of going in by myself - last time she went all shy and just nodded instead of giving answers (which is one of her habits from her selective mutism which she otherwise seems to have under control) and it comes across as rude somehow.

Ds had a calm day yesterday, no strops and managed to be civil towards us, wish he could be like that more often. Westvan, have your 2 grown out of that sort of thing? When can I hope that he will calm down and become civilized again!?

Well, I did not speak French before we moved so no idea if the accent is strong here. I have heard that the Swiss speak French slower (there's a surprise!).

Did you do food for the party evening? Sounds intresting.

We've just 'discovered' tofu and amazingly the dc both like it so we've done sweet and sour and a noodle style chinese dish with tofu instead of chicken and it's a hit.

Have never warmed to Tofu, although I suspect that if it is done well that it can be tasty.

I made a yummy Beef and Guiness Stew with Irish Soda Bread. And a chocolate cake that was to die for. All new recipes so a bit nerve-wracking but they turned out ok.

Good morning everyone, am goin to head off to bed in a minute, as my dd decided at 2.30 she was up and not going back down. She did go back to bed about 5 am but I thought not much point in me going back to bed at that point. I'll get her back at some point

Had brilliant news just now, spoke to the Hort leiter who is just so unbelievably lovely, and he's told me ds2 and dd can definatley keep their Hort/Krippe places after we move in the summer. I can't believe it, that's just so perfect, do ds1 is sorted, ds2 is sorted, dd is sorted, just need to get ds3 sorted. He did tell me he would almost certainly get sent to the closest Grundschule (there are 3 in the gemeinde), but the closest is just 200m from our house, so would've been a pain not to get in, but he's also reeassured me that that shouldn't be a problem, so now just have to register him and pray he gets a Hort platz.

It all feels too good to be true.

Good luck to all those with Elterngespräch. blimey, after my last one I'm going to live in fear of them. I can just imagine a 10 minute latin teacher vocab rant. shudder

admylin, glad ds had a calmer day. I'm sure it'll not hurt once you get to move somewhere bigger too. Any news on flat front?

Good news that everything seems to be sorted! Now you can concentrate on yet another move! Atleast it's the last one.

Waiting to hear from owner of the big flat with own garden, I hope she is going to agre eto fix and decorate the place then it would be perfect. Saw a house with garden in the paper and have been trying to phone since yesterday but no answer, so annoying as it would also be perfect in a street just behind school.

Think you could be right, everything will be alot better when we do get moved - I'm staying positive but the dc are fed up of it.

That is fab, Ernest. Must be a relief to have ti almost sorted.

Going to phone the doc in Würzburg to see if we can get the DC in for a check up when we are there. They don't do the U check ups here in Switzerland.

don't they? Mine all had them (but were younger than I think yours are...?)