The German School System. German Kindergarten It's sometimes hard to find a place for your kid....
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Transcript of The German School System. German Kindergarten It's sometimes hard to find a place for your kid....
The German School System
German Kindergarten
• It's sometimes hard to find a place for your kid.
• Parents often apply for a kindergarten as soon as their children are born.
• Children usually attend kindergarten from age 3 to 6.
Grundschule (elementary school)
• Children start at the age of 6
• Grades 1-4• One teacher teaches
most subjects
• Reading and writing
• Maths
• Social standards and values
• Music
• Physical education
• Art
• HSU (Heimat und Sachunterricht) which combines biology, history, and geography.
• Religious education (must be offered at all state schools granted in the Constitution)
Time to choose
• When the pupils are about 10 years old (in year 4), teachers and parents choose between 3 options (tri-partite system):
• Hauptschule/ Mittelschule (secondary school)
• Realschule (secondary modern school)
• Gymnasium (grammar school)
Hauptschule/ Mittelschule
• lowest-achieving students
• more slowly paced and more basic instruction than at the Realschule and Gymnasium.
• additional subjects at the Hauptschule have a vocational orientation.
• grades 5 - 9
• about 25 percent of German students attend the Hauptschule.
Realschule
• The Realschule provides students with an education which combines both theoretical and practical elements (grades 5 – 10)
• Subjects like bookkeeping, technical drawing etc.
• About 24 percent of German students attend the Realschule,
Gymnasium• The Gymnasium provides students with a liberal education and is supposed to
enable them to study at university.
• About 30 percent of German students are enrolled in the Gymnasium.
• Students may enroll in the Gymnasium at the lower secondary level (5th grade) or may transfer to the Gymnasium after completing the Realschule (11th grade).
• The final 2 or 3 years of Gymnasium (grades 11-12 or 11-13) are called the Oberstufe (upper level).
• Students who successfully complete their studies at a Gymnasium get their final degree, the „Abitur“.
The grading scale used throughout the German education system ranges from 1—6. (A "6" is the equivalent of a failing grade). Teachers are permitted to add a plus or minus in parentheses to provide further differentiation.
1 = very good 2 = good 3 = satisfactory 4 = adequate 5 = poor 6 = very poor
Grading and Examinations
Criticism of the German tripartite system :
• Separation of children along class lines at a very early age, compared to other states/ countries
• Only the Gymnasium is a university-preparatory school, so critics argue essentially a decision is made as early as the fourth grade about whether a child will be allowed to attend college.
Thanks for your attention!