to SSSandy

[admylin]

I had some trouble loging in but I hope this time it works! Where are you in Berlin? I have also had a lot of trouble with schools for my 2, they hate going but one of them has a good dedicated teacher who has taught my daughter very well for the 1st year and the other has a friendly but scatty teacher and they haven't even filled half a book with writing she is very slow and often off sick! Any way, you can find a good school , but then have bad luck with the teacher. Also I find security very low, the kids come to school alone even in the first year some do, and at the end of school no one is bothered if your child walks out of the school grounds alone. In the uK it is much stricter till about age 9 I think they have to be picked up at the door in my home town.

Hi Admylin, we live in Charlottenburg, near Los Angeles Platz, if that says anything to you. You must be in Mitte, if your kids attend the Europa school there. I don't know anything about that school, I just looked into the English language options. I know people whose kids attend the Charles Dickens Europa School (Engl-Germ) but when I went there, I found there was ZERO security. Anyone could wander in there and take a child off with them. I was also told that a while back a 6 year old was raped there in the toilets by a workman. I don't know the truth of that though, it's just hearsay - but it definitely decided me against that school. I've been told though that the Quentin Blake Europa school in Zehlendorf (Engl-Germ) is supposed to be good but it is too far for me to travel every day.

Thanks for mentioning that about kids being able to just wander off (!) I'll make a point of getting there early.

I'm with you, no way would I let my dd walk to and from school on her own. I'd only do that if she was on a bike, and even then, I'd be uncomfortable with the city traffic. I don't think that drivers keep an eye out for pedestrians, they seem to charge from traffic light to traffic light.

Have your kids always attended German language schools? Why do you think they hate going to school? Is it the behaviour of the other kids?

Hi SSSandy, well I think security is a big problem inall schools, I have heard of the rape in the toilets and in the old school in the south (near Stuttgart) if a child neede to go to the toilet during lessons the teacher always sent another child with them so they never went alone - that was theonly positive thing regarding security that I have ever experienced. In the Berlin school they go alone and it is quite a big building, when I go to pick my 2 up I am sometimes 10 minutes early and I've seen a first year kid going along the corridor to the toilets and taking her time, then slowly dawdling back to the classroom and the teacher has never even looked out of the classroom to see whats taking so long.
I think my son especially hates school here because he loved his old school, he used to run ahead in teh mornings to get there and he had a really good best friend, also it was a modern nice open friendly classroom with nice playground etc.. most of thekids were from academic background families from all over the world. Now we are in one of those typical old buildings with very high cielings and cold empty classrooms painted grey(!) - the sound echoes and the teachers have to shout to be heard which , from outside the door sounds terrible to me. He is accepted in the class but the kids just aren't his cup of tea, very loud, not interested in learning,total opposite from his old school. He has a best friend who goes to another school but we have just found out that they are moving to Spain so he is even more fed up! I could go on for ages but maybe we could meet up one day for coffee, which Ubahn line are you on? I live just a couple of streets from Charite hospital where dh works and a few minute walk to Brandenburger gate and Potsdamer platz.

Hi Admylin,
Shame about your son's school, I'd be tempted to move him but it doesn't seem worth it if you're only here for a year or two. Just too much upheaval and you never know how the new school will work out. Where would you like to live, given the chance?

As for meeting up, I'll have to take a raincheck on that because I'm going through a humungous crisis at the moment but I'll spare you the details. Need to get my whole life sorted out right now so I'm a nervous wreck these days. Perhaps in a month or so things will have picked up.

Have you heard of connect? (connectberlin.de)I've never been to their meetings but you might meet nice people or have you been round to the Anglican Church at Neuwestend (stgeorges.de)? Look under "parish life".They have coffee mornings on Friday, toddler groups and social events like booksales and so on. You don't have to be Anglican. People there give you good tips on English language activities for your kids too.

Hi Admylin,
Shame about your son's school, I'd be tempted to move him but it doesn't seem worth it if you're only here for a year or two. Just too much upheaval and you never know how the new school will work out. Where would you like to live, given the chance?

As for meeting up, I'll have to take a raincheck on that because I'm going through a humungous crisis at the moment but I'll spare you the details. Need to get my whole life sorted out right now so I'm a nervous wreck these days. Perhaps in a month or so things will have picked up.

Have you heard of connect? (connectberlin.de)I've never been to their meetings but you might meet nice people or have you been round to the Anglican Church at Neuwestend (stgeorges.de)? Look under "parish life".They have coffee mornings on Friday, toddler groups and social events like booksales and so on. You don't have to be Anglican. People there give you good tips on English language activities for your kids too.

Hi again, yes I've heard of connect but I can't go out to their meetings as they are in the evening and my dh is glad to be finishing work between 9 and 10pm!
Any way to be honest we don't have so much time on our hands to be bored or feel too lonely, the weekdays are fully booked with my proofreading work at home, school, extra school work and swimming lessons and other things. Weekends are sometimes boring because dh usually goes into work. The good thing is , since moving to Berlin we get plenty of friends and family coming to stay as everyone wants to visit Berlin! Must admit I am getting a bit fed up of doing the bus ride100/200 with them all andI know the tourist rounds inside out!
I don't really know where we would move to but everyone says charlottenburg is good but I didn't like it when we were flat hunting. Ideally I would like to go back to the UK - the kids want to aswell but USA is on the list for the next job. If dh doesn't manage to get a good job to further his career he has got a position lined up as assistant professor but in Pakistan. I would then go to my parents for those couple of years as I would not take my kids to Karachi.

Know what you mean about keeping busy with children's activities! Pakistan... can't really envisage Karachi. Have you been there before? I see they have plenty of international schools but I don't know if it is a place I'd like to live, know too little about it. Might be a nice life, they're bound to have friendlier shop-assistants than here, that's for sure

You mentioned you give your kids extra lessons in the afternoon to keep abreast of the British curriculum. (I'm impressed!). How do you go about that? I should really do this too, never know if you are going to end up going back; although it doesn't seem on the cards just now.

Yes I went to Karachi before but years ago and we also went to Dhaka in Bangladesh with the 2 kids when they were really small, but since then the situation has changed alot and I would be living a life of always being worried about the kids and trying to melt into the background (being so blonde and blue eyed that would mean the tchador) friends of ours have even had a child kidnapped in Karachi and a million dollar ransom set just because they lived in USA.Its a shame because the people are really nice and friendly especially towards kids and as a mother you are respected a thousand times more than in "western " society.
Anyway, back to comparitively safe germany,yes I tried to do the stuff from BBC schools website (dynamo something like that)with the kids at fist mostly little games and and I had a set from UK of magazines and cds from "learning land" which taught the spelling and numbers in english till they could read simple words and now we mostly just practise reading as it is really hard compared to german and they have to learn the different spellings. They are definately not up to Uk standard for their age yet but we are getting there and if we do get to go back I am sure they will catch up quickly because I have got them used to learning.
Do you know many other british or foreign as in not german families here in Berlin? In our old place we knew loads of english speaking families from UK, Australia and USA but here we haven't met any yet. There are a couple of british exchange scientists at dh's work but they aren't into family life yet!!

That does sound dodgy, I wouldn't risk it either.

I've met a lot of English speaking families here but I don't keep in touch with many of them. Met a lot of nice people when I went to the toddler group at the English church but many were embassy staff and have since left. Met a lot of people when I studied here, I taught English at the time. I'm not great at keeping in touch with people though so I don't see many of them regularly, since they don't have children.

These days, my life revolves around dd and her activities. Since she's been going to German kindergartens for around 4 years now, most of the people I have contact to are German or at least German speakers.

That is usually the problem with expats, they always move on! We had loads of good friends in the south and they all moved away, especially bad luck for ds as he made good friends with kids about 3 times and then suddenly they all left to their respective countries.
Any way if you ever do feel like meeting you could mail me [email protected] we are always free on weekends too as dh works, I have even got real tea at home (get tea flown in with relatives!)

Thanks Amylin, will do - the tea sounds good to me although I've been OD-ing on far too much extremely strong coffee the last couple of days...