Australia Vs Deutschland

You can see from these photos, it's quite a challenge getting a German child to smile ..... something that is maintain through out life....

We're just about to complete week 2 of school in Germany and reality is hitting us a little. Steph's thirst for conversation is largely unsatisfied at school with her limited German. Dividing air-time between the girls has always been a bit of a challenge - but now after school both have so much say, having been bottled up all day, I need two sets of ears.

The girls and I have come up with a list of 'differences' between their Australian and their German schools, the most glaringly obvious one is the clothing...

Uniforms or not?

There are no uniforms worn in school in Germany. This means we've had to purchase a stack of new clothes. I'm missing the uniformity of a uniform, the girls have a heightened sense of fashion already, which can be quite tedious in the mornings. Casual clothes certainly enable kids to individualise themselves, there's one little girl I was convinced was a boy until I saw her name and Mia is now obsessed with unicorn ear-rings. Fortunately fashion has never been very important to Steph.

Food

Our State in Germany (NRW) has committed to providing hot meals to all children who need to stay longer than the usual pick-up time of 12:30pm. However, they have run out of funding or capacity (or both) and on the two days our girls stay back until 2:30pm they are given cold vegetables and fruit. However, all children are also give a bottle of flavoured milk for morning tea, which the girls find quite special. There are no tuckshops.

Birthdays

Birthdays are celebrated in the class with parents providing the usual lollies and sweet for every child. However, when they sing Happy Birthday it is in both English and German and the child is lifted in the air on a chair once for every year old he/she is. So far no-one has fallen off yet....

English Lessons

English lessons start in Year 1, so it's the favourite lesson for Steph and Mia ... finally they can answer the questions! The teacher has already taught the classes to count to 20; greet each other and know the colours. All language learning seems to be through songs and games.

Welcoming Ceremony

The new students have a truly beautiful welcoming ceremony (see earlier Blog entry). The participation of the entire school is the nicest part and by the end of Day 1 each new child is bubbling with enthusiasm and a positive sense of growing up.

Sport

As the days are so short, we were not expecting to do much sport at school. However, we were wrong. Every Monday the entire school heads to the local indoor swimming pool for 2 hours and every Friday they go to a local sports hall for another 2 hours. Sports Day was cancelled last Term as it was too hot, so they have rescheduled to Monday. They will start the day by marching all the children 5km into a local forest. Afterwhich they will perform sport until midday and then no doubt gratefully catch the bus home again.

Communication with the Teachers

This is terrible. There are no school diaries for parents to write little reminders or express concern etc to the teachers, so every morning a queue of parents stand in line for up to 30min. The teachers don't send home monthly letters outlining the curriculum, planned activities etc. We're completely in the dark about what they are learning until they bring some homework home. And even that is a trial as the children are expected to write their homework duties in a book, which of course is beyond the ability of Steph and Mia at this stage, so we guess what might be nice to do every evening. Reading is definitely not a top priority as it is at St Igs!

Social Calendar

There are none. There are no mechanisms for parents to get to know each other apart from brief conversations at collection time. I really miss having a class representative parent and a few coffee sessions with other Mums.

Discipline.

Compared to St Ignatius there is very very little discipline. Some kids run amok. Yesterday Mia was whipped on the stomach by some child who took a home-made whip to school. It took far too long before a teacher realised what was happening in the yard. When Steph's teacher restructured the class, some children came in and started re-arranging the furniture before the start of school.We mentioned that maybe a point system for positive and negative behaviour might be useful. Now Steph's teacher has one, but with no obvious consequences....? ie very little affect.

So all up we are missing school in Australia. There are days when Mia is overjoyed with the day and others where she is utterly miserable - which is exactly as it was in Australia. Steph is in a trough - no doubt her need to communicate will rapidly propel her to learn some German.