Recently, on a trip back to the UK, a friend of a friend raised an eyebrow when he heard that my children (aged 13 and 10) go to local schools in Kreuzberg, Berlin, rather than an international school.
In the nicest possible way, he asked whether my children could speak English properly, whether they knew who Guy Fawkes was, and whether I understood the value of an International Baccalaureate diploma. As an aside, he wondered about the available sports and other extra-curricular activities.
I love the way my children talk English – a weird mix of (my) slang from the nineties, Taylor Swift lyrics, odds bit of German grammar, and an accent all their own.
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I couldn’t care less about Guy Fawkes, and if there’s one thing Germany does well it’s providing a multitude of clubs and associations which offer every imaginable activity.
In the hands of a huge, impersonal bureaucracy
We all want to give our children the best possible start in life. For my new acquaintance, that meant an international school, and his gentle grilling made me wonder whether my wife and I had made the right call – assuming it would have been possible to secure places at one of Berlin’s few State European Schools (SESB) or manage the fees at a private school.
For children, school in Germany starts with an Einschulung party – a brilliant tradition designed to give kids something to look forward to as the first day of school draws near (rather than the dread I remember from my first day).
For parents, school begins on the day you type your address into the relevant government website, discover the name of the institution your child will be attending, and find yourself in the hands of a huge and impersonal bureaucracy.
Our decision to opt for our local, public school has meant exposing ourselves to recurring periods of gnawing uncertainty, which I manage with bouts of vigorous nodding (designed to mask my near total incomprehension).
In our particular Einzugsgebiet (catchment area), the local primary school closed shortly before my daughter was due to start there. Asbestos had been found in the building. Arrangements were being made to put ‘container classrooms’ in the playground of another school.
READ ALSO: 5 things you never knew about Germany's school system
My wife and I started looking for a loophole (a vital and under-rated parenting skill). In our case it was a nearby Gemeinschaftschule – a combined primary and secondary school permitted to accept children from outside the catchment area. We put the application forms in and then waited...for weeks, in a state of nervous uncertainty.
The consequences of missing out are real
My daughter was eventually offered a place, but the pattern had now been set.
We moved shortly before my son was due to start school. We couldn’t get an appointment to register our new address until after the deadline for school applications had passed – which meant a flurry of phone calls, letters and emails, followed by more uncertainty.
Kreuzberg is a rapidly gentrifying area with one of the highest birth rates in Germany – and a chronic shortage of Gymnasium (secondary schools offering 12 years of study and a straightforward route to university).
At the beginning of her fifth school year, my daughter and her friends were told they needed to maintain a grade point average of 1.2 across two semesters to be sure of finding a place at a school nearby. Some gave up immediately.
Others spent the last year and a half of primary school desperately raising their hands in class and cramming for exams. The consequences of missing out are real.
A few weeks before their son was due to start secondary school, our neighbours discovered he would have to travel for an hour each day from his home in the city centre to a Gymnasium in the suburbs where there was more capacity.
Alternatively, he could go to a local Realschule (which offers a total of ten years at school rather than 12, and a route to an apprenticeship or vocational school rather than university).
Remaining in a state of uncertainty
I was helpless to help my already fluent daughter with any subject except English. Fortunately, her teachers and teaching assistants were fabulous.
Almost without exception, we have found the teaching staff in Berlin to be warm and welcoming, and committed to creating real bonds among the children in their care.
My daughter stepped up. The requirements are so absurd that even her near-perfect performance was a prelude to more uncertainty.
The first year of Gymnasium in Berlin is a Probejahr or probationary year - read, more uncertainty. Despite having worked hard to win a place at her new school, my daughter was told she would have to leave again if she flunked two subjects.
When she had successfully negotiated this hurdle, I was ready to relax for a year or two. Then Berlin’s new centre-right government decided to do away with preferential treatment for siblings.
My son would have to make his own way, but now based exclusively on his grades in maths, German, and English. In their wisdom, the government had also decided that his passion for sport, music and art was irrelevant.
And so we remain in a state of flux – which our friends and acquaintances whose children attend private international schools don’t seem to recognise at all.
In Berlin, a small number of State European Schools offer bilingual education in a range of languages – but most international schools are private.
They look for ways to attract and keep children, rather than ways to lighten the load on stretched resources. They offer smaller class sizes and modern facilities, lessons in your child’s native language as well as German, and longer and more predictable school days. (Public schools in Germany often finish shortly after lunch, and – in Berlin at least – a shortage of teachers means that classes are sometimes cancelled at short notice).
Above all, private schools offer parents the tantalising gift of freedom from this uncertainty.
Yet I don’t regret the decision we made. My two children walk or cycle to their schools unsupervised. Their friends all live nearby (and don’t keep disappearing when the family moves home after a year or two).
Best of all, my children seem to high-five or fist-bump at least half the people we pass on the street – they're at home here in a way that takes my breath away.
Share your own experiences of finding the right school for your children in Germany? Did you go down the private route? Do you have any regrets? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below.
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