SSShakeTheChi

[finknottle]

Thanks for your comforting reaction to my post about ds Yes, his teacher is useless and yes, she made ds feel like a failure. At least now she appreciates he is trying and his report was a lot better.
Sadly, we're in the boondocks, nearest international school is a private one 30 mins drive away, upwards of 1000 euros a month per child which isn't affordable on one salary. Plus it wouldn't be fair to ds2 or dd, they'd love it too, and 3000 euros a month - ha! How do people afford these places?
The head is worse, she takes him for maths (form teacher is not qualified to, I ask you ...) and she's nasty. We have 2 weeks till we get the results from the educational ped. and find out how we can help ds (and what he has exactly) and if he gets into a school which is right for him, I'm loathe to have her picking on him till July. I'd rather play a long game.
We're on tenterhooks still about the secondary schools. We've gone from assuming ds1 would go to gymnasium and take Abitur because we knew his general intelligence level and nothing in Y1, 2 and start of Y3 indicated otherwise. Then we worried he'd not get in and so many options would be closed to him. Now we just want to send him to a school which cares as much about the child as his marks. That's why I can't understand this system of assessing their university potential at the age of 9. I don't think any other country makes this decision as early. It's insane.
How's your dd doing? Hope I haven't terrified you too much. I hadn't realised how much to heart ds was taking my reaction to his rotten 3rd Year and start of Y4. When I calmed down, it helped him and I kick myself for having been such a harpy - such is motherhood It's one thing to say, "All we want is for you to do your best" and then lose my calm when I'd spot another daft mistake (one of a dozen) and through gritted teeth, say, "Oh, well" - he'd know darn well I was fuming. I fume a lot less these days
As for the Schreibschrift, mad, mad, mad. Better save that for when I have a G & T to calm me down
A girl I know here only started learning German at the start of Y3. She loves school and her teacher (better than ds's, needless to say) is so impressed by her ability, attitude and her potential, that even though she got 4s for Rechtschreibung, she got a gymnasium recommendation. That cheered me up, shows that some teachers here are looking at the long-term and the child.
What annoys me so much about ds's teacher is that she's so defensive about this recommendation thing and expects only resistance /fights with parents that she sees everything through that prism. Shows her lack of confidence in her own abilities.
I was handling her so well till dh and I had a meeting with her and the head. He'd always kept away. And we'd rehearsed our cool and reserved act which lasted 4 minutes as the head (deliberately) started the meeting with an attack on ds and dh hit the roof - I'm surprised you didn't hear us in Berlin
I remind myself (and you) that our children are wonderful and unique They'll have difficulties with the German language but they'll gain (and give) so much more in their lives.

PS Are you on hols?

bump

Oh fink It's an awful situation. Look I don't know all the ins and outs of your situation and the things you need to consider but my gut feeling is you have to get him out of there. It just sounds like such a damaging environment.

Putting the international school aside, where else could he go?

I had dd at the kindergarten round the corner (5 minutes walk). It was dreadful. The way the carers spoke to the dc and the parents was unbelievable. Totally uncaring even downright nasty at times. Other parents hated it too but just seemed to think, "well we have to put up with it". I couldn't bear taking dd there, I'd go with a feeling like lead in my stomach.

Luckily I knew not all kindergartens are like that here because dd had been in a Catholic one previously which was very caring. They'd hug the kids, chat to the parents, offer us a coffee, have a laugh and so on. Totally different world. So I took dd out and put her in the Catholic kindergarten attached to her current school. At the time I was really worried how she'd cope with yet another change and then of course the extra travelling but from day 1, I tell you, it felt absolutely right. She was so much happier there. The very first day she said, "mummy I never want to go back to the old kindergarten, here the ladies are kind to the dc." I really feel that is so important, you know.

How can he go to maths class with a teacher who is nasty to him? It's just not on. Yet you can't do much to change it, can you, if the maths teacher is also the head? I mean who could you complain to? It sounds to me that things have reached a point where turning them around is going to be extremely difficult.

I can well imagine that teachers are used to being screamed down by irate dp particularly when it comes to this recommendation thing so perhaps they were geared up for a fight. I do remember once speaking to the architect on the phone saying I wasn't happy with something the workmen had being doing (in a rented property we had - nothing grand) and he screamed down the phone at me for ages: "let me finish speaking! Let me finish speaking!" I wasn't saying a thing. At some stage he clicked and realised I had been silent the whole time. He'd just expected us to have a screaming match. You could hear the surprise in his voice when he realised he was the only one screaming!

Here we have some secondary schools which are a combination of Realschule and Gymnasium. So if ds got the recommendation say for Realschule, he could attend a school like that in the Realschule stream to start with but he would have the option, if everyone felt he was up to it, of moving into the Abitur stream at some point. I think that would be best for your ds.

We have next week off school! Bliss...

It's good to hear your dd found a better kiga. Luckily ours is good on the whole and dd is in ds1's old group - I asked that she be as I know the teachers are the best. OK, there are things I'd change but my main concern was that the dc were happy there and they were. We only have 1 kiga and 1 primary school in the village. Still amazes me to see some of the teachers' sour faces though, I mean, if you don't like noisy children, don't work with them!

About ds1, yes the head is his maths teacher and honestly, I think the worst is over. The results from the Kinderarzt must show some official diagnosis and that should also help his teachers see that when he lapses, it's not lack of care or laziness, but that he genuinely can't help it. If they don't then I'll bite! Tbh, the head just wanted the whole thing over without a fight; that didn't stop her starting one but like all bullies, she doesn't like people standing up to her. She wants to get as many pupils to gymnasium and bugger the rest of them. Once all the faff is over, things should settle down all round.

DH is all for court cases and fireworks but we still don't know exactly what ds has and dh's methods may make him feel better but won't help ds. I'm all for assertiveness but like to choose my weapons!

We are hoping ds will get into a Gesamtschule, the one that mixes all types. We were so impressed by their teaching methods and the emphasis on the children and their individual development not just "Pflichtfach/Wahlfach/blah" BUT, it's massively oversubscribed. Fingers crossed.

At least ds2 has a good teacher, not so hung up on rules and regulations and she deliberately put ds2 in the Auslaenderfoerderunterricht rather than the usual extra German as she said it's obvious that his problems are to do with his bilingualism. Ds1's teacher however, refused to believe that, to her, he was being sloppy and I didn't even know they had a foreigners' group in his year She put him in the regular extra tuition group in Y3 tho' he writes things like "nexter" rather than "naechster" or "Panic" not "Panik".

Anything I do to help you, please ask It's nice to offload sometimes.

There are no hols here. Straight from January 8th till Easter hols in April with 2 days off for carnival. Wish they had a proper half-term.

Hi finknottle, hope everything works out better soon. It is hard work isn't it. My dc have suffered alot in Kindergarten and at school but up to now it's been sorted out or we've left (kindergarten).

One thing I noticed alot is that my kids have been brought up differently to the average german style and as english is their first language they were often shocked at how german adults would speak to them and interpreted it as being nasty, angry or unfriendly. That made them feel uncomfortable so they weren't as responsive as the teachers would have liked, infact they were intimidated, it was like a viscious circle though.

Now I've clicked on what their problem is I've sat them down and explained that germans just sound snotty some times and we just have to ignore it. Still, that head teacher of yours sounds like a real rotter.

at "real rotter", I'll remember that next time I'm tempted to push her bullying face in, "You're a real rotter, you are" You're right about the different style of interaction with Germans. Took me ages to get used to it and even now I bristle sometimes because some do manage to be polite and smiling so it can hardly be genetically impossible.

I hesitated about telling the dc that Germans are grumpy as they're half-German just said that "some people are". Interesting that the boys noted that even at the airport in England people are friendlier!

On the whole we've been lucky with kiga and the primary till ds1 lately. He had 2 great years and ds2 started with the same wonderful teacher till she went on maternity leave and I'm hoping she'll be back in 2 years to teach dd; they put siblings with the same teacher.

As for the system, I'm sure we'd have other concerns & complaints elsewhere. It just really bugs me that there is no provision at the school here for children's differing learning abilities. Not only slower /faster /learning difficulties but in general. They are expected to move at the pace of the class and each class is constantly compared to the others in the year, by the parents as much as the teachers.

Suppose I should be glad they've allowed the Y1 & Y2 teachers more leeway now, according to ds1's teacher, let's hope more change comes. Little hope, the PISA scandal seems to have made them more "Noten Noten" fixated and I hear from parents of dc at gymnasium that the expectations keep rising.

"Interesting that the boys noted that even at the airport in England people are friendlier!"

Same here, my kids don't say a word outside here but in UK they go and pay themselves because they aren't scared of the shop keepers! One thing I really missed, when they were really small and cute in south Germany they didn't get spoken to on the street or in the bus. In France and from my experience in UK (but only the Lake district)everyone speaks to little ones and admires them which is good for their confidence. Mine would have had totally different out going personalities if we'd been in UK I'm sure of it. I see them "blossom" in the school holidays and just as they get used to it we have to come back. Makes me sad each time for their sake. Have you been on Britboard or I think it's toytowngermany.de now it changed names and I stopped going on but you can have a good old rant and rave about the german system on there and it does you good! Mostly brit and american expats in Germany on there.

Oh you have to be so careful what you say to the dc about Germans, don't you (as in sweeping generalisations)? I remember a couple of times, I've muttered something angrily to dd after a run-in with some unpleasant git and she's pulled me up immediately. "But mummy x and y (her best friends) are German. And so are their parents (who it is true are all lovely people) and so is Frau x (teacher) and Frau y (our lovely 90 year old neighbour who thrusts little packets of yummy biscuits at us every time she sees us walking past)." When I stop to think about SO MANY people have been kind to us or gone out of their way to help us that I really have to watch my tongue and not make those wild accusations but there are times....

Then there is the Kinderarzt who is just lovely. He always gives dd a cuddle and I find myself looking on wishing I was getting one too! All the mums love him, he's a dreamboat...

The other day we were having a discussion on why we don't do something because we're not German, I forget what it was, something like shaking hands every time you see someone or that kind of thing. And dd says, "yes mummy I'm English but I'm ALSO German". So I said, "no, actually you're not German". You should have seen her face! She was SO upset. So I said of course since she was born here and speaks the language she can be German if she likes and managed to rescue that one. They identify themselves very strongly with Germany I find.

should add obviously you have to be careful about making these kind of comments anywhere about anyone but you know what I mean when you get totally exasperated about German bureaucracy or something like that.

Lol at having a rant, admylin! Posting on here has really helped and I do remind myself that we'd encounter problems anywhere 'cos that's life. Had a look at the Special Educational Needs topic and found loads of posts about dyslexia, problems with schools etc. Same everywhere! Think we were just coddled till now, good kiga, good primary...then you clash with the school and the ground shifts for a while. Overwhelming that is the concern for ds, who has been so unhappy.

I am so pleased to be able to thrash out the bilingualism issues here as it's so multi-faceted and interesting and right now with school issues concerning their language skills, it's good to swap experiences.

I find myself listing all the good things here, of which there are many When you live abroad you can tend to attribute any difficulties with the country, "Stupid German!" where at home, you'd just think, "Stupid woman!"

Really had to rein myself in as I hear ds2 saying things like that too. He announced one night he'd hand back his German Kinderausweis and keep the other passport - like choosing a book at the library! That stemmed from homework, he reads so much better in English and writes most nouns in lower case so he wanted a quick solution to his German homework!

I really think the language issue is very much tied up with identity issues. I suppose we are very lucky in that English is a high status language here and most dc have to learn it at school, so the motivation to keep it up is quite strong, despite that urge dc have to fit in with their peer group and at all costs avoid being different.

Dd was telling me the other day that the kids from 5th year were asking her how to say various things in English and they were going on about how they'd love to have English parents because then they wouldn't have to actually learn the language at school. We also get quite a few people speaking to her in English when they overhear us in a shop or on the street. On the whole, we aren't disapproved of for speaking English but not all languages meet with similar approval.

I think Polish is a very low status language here. I've never quite figured out why but I think it has something to do with Poland being a direct neighbour. Russian is much higher up the social scale for some reason. A Polish mum told me that she and her (Polish German) husband made the conscious decision never to speak Polish to their ds so that he would be completely at home here. He doesn't understand any Polish at all. She told me she'd worried that if he spoke Polish in kindergarten, no dc would play with him. I think frankly that wouldn't have been the case but she was obviously very concerned that if he was known to speak Polish, he would have been somehow second class. In fact come to think of it, I know 3 Polish families who brought up their dc speaking only German.

Actually I asked dd about this because she started German kindergarten aged about 2 and didn't speak a word of German. A Polish boy and a Croatian girl started at the same time. None of them spoke German and the other dc were great with them, especially the older ones, really took them under their wings. Dd said they were all kind to her and that was my impression too.

Oi, SSShake, why are you on Mumsnet and not out sweeping the road in front of your building as decreed by law

Couldn't resist popping in as can't face cleaning/cooking for MIL's visit today. It's a lovely sunny day here and I want to potter round the garden not prepare house and self for the onslaught.

I think it's sad that some nationalities here feel like that about their language and German. As you note, the children don't give a stuff, it's the parents

you're joking?! I've never done that!

Here half the village is out, good way to meet your neighbours if you want to. We moved last year and I knew if I popped out with my brush on Sat they'd be all out to talk to me and give me the thumbs up for "doing the right thing" - haven't done it since mind

Friendly people here luckily, we've got lovely neighbours on the whole.

Finknottle, that really reminds me about our time in the south, the constant sweeping, washing cars and the famous Kehrwoche.The thing with the snow too, they were so strict and ready to tell you off if you didn't do your cleaning stint on time. I was so relieved to move to Berlin and discover that no one was into that sort of thing and most buildings have hausmeister who do the sweeping!
Everyone leaves you in peace here, no nagging and telling offs because the rubbish isn't properly getrennt! Paradise!

I absolutely couldn't be bothered with that. In fact I'd get totally depressed in a situation like that with neighbours telling me to sort my rubbish and sweep the street!