Looking back, or what I would have done differently, having moved to work in Germany now. Part 4 (Education in Germany)

In continuation of the topics started on Geektimes:

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1



I will continue the topic begun in the 3rd part, but never completed. Now there will be a story about schools in Germany.

Again, everything that is written below refers to the region of my residence, but most of the information from this post can be spread to the whole of Germany.

Schools

School is required. No options. If your child is sick and you decide to “treat” him at home yourself - at best, you will receive a call from the class teacher asking him to explain why the child was not in school. In the worst case, get a letter from the school and you will have to personally come and tell you the reasons for your bad behavior . But in especially worst cases, the police may come to you. Once a colleague flew on vacation to Ukraine not during school holidays - it’s good that he took a piece of paper from the school, which said that the class teacher was informed and that for family reasons the child “needed” to skip school. Why it is good? Because at the customs in Frankfurt, the officer immediately had a question about the "school misdirection", since child of school age and has a residence permit in Germany. What would happen if he did not have that piece of paper - I do not know.

Therefore, if the child is still unwell - forward to the doctor, get a certificate and take it to the class teacher, or to start, call, notify, and after recovery, include the certificate. Without this, there will be problems.

Types of schools

1. Primary school (Grundschule) from the "zero" and the so-called "preparatory class for foreigners" to the 4th.
   
   Schools are divided on a territorial basis and it is almost impossible to go "to your" school. If for some reason you don’t like the school to which you are assigned, then the only option is to change your place of residence so that the new address is “assigned” to another school.
   
   Primary school is always in a separate building, and does not intersect with other types of schools.
   
   ')
   
   If to compare with the Russian / Soviet elementary school, here it looks more like a very large preparatory group of the kindergarten. My colleague has a daughter graduated from the 3rd grade of the lyceum in her homeland, here she was identified in the 2nd grade (due to a not very good German). They resented for a very long time about when the training would begin, since for the most part, children up to the 3rd grade play and write something there, they think, but they don’t really strain themselves.
   
   As already mentioned in the third part , it is customary here to give children childhood, without loading their knowledge until they are really needed.
   
   
   
   According to the stories of a friend living in Vienna, the situation with an elementary school, more like a kindergarten preparatory group, is the same.
2. The main / main school (Hauptschule) is the next 5 years, up to the 9th grade inclusive. After primary school, a schoolchild may decide to finish the “school agony” and go to study in a working specialty - his will. But then change your mind then is extremely difficult, because the entire educational system is very strongly tied to the estimates from the previous stage. I do not want to say that it is impossible, but then you have to spend money on tutors, attend some courses to learn the necessary subject and get the cherished assessment.
3. In parallel, the primary school has a “real school” (Realschule - I don’t know how else to say it in Russian). You can get there from the 6th grade and study until the 10th. Why is it needed? If you (your child) have decided that studying in primary is too easy and that the child will not get a working profession, but will continue to study further, then this school is just for that. In basic school, the child will receive only the basic knowledge that is needed, say, a mechanic or bus driver. Here is a little higher step and given more "practical" skills.
4. Gymnasium. The most "cool" school in Germany. You can get there both after the end of the initial one and at the end of the real one (I have not heard about the options of getting from the main one). "Get" there only by estimates. If a child is an excellent student (here the system of assessments is a mirror of the Russian: a unit is very good, 5 is terribly bad), if he shows himself actively, participates in school life - the door to the gymnasium is open for him. Otherwise, you will have to hire tutors and pull up grades to units in all subjects. There is no other way out.
   
   If a child decided to go to a gymnasium after a real school, then even having only a few, it’s not a fact that he will get there. You need to "advertise" yourself - write a special article about yourself, show your strengths, prove that you are worthy to study at the gymnasium (the eldest son will write this just the other day).
   
   
   
   In the latter, the 13th (in some lands in the 12th) class, students prepare for admission to the university (the gymnasium, in fact, the only way for a child to the university) write an examination paper (Abitur). Her protection and obtaining is actually equivalent to the certificate of maturity and this, one can say, is the main (often unattainable) goal of the student.
   
   

In general, and in general, from this whole system and its problems flow:

1. It is very difficult to go from a lower level (say, from basic school to a gymnasium), because the child simply does not have the necessary knowledge, because they are not given in the general school
2. the decision about which school to go to after finishing the initial one has to be taken so early that few people can consciously make it. Who from readers Habra can say that he was already in the 4th grade exactly decided to enter the university?
3. in comparison with the Russian education, only the gymnasium really falls short of it. On the one hand, it’s good when a person isn’t clogged with the brain by mathematical analysis, if he has decided to become a milling machine. But on the other - how can you make such a decision in 10 years?
4. children of immigrants / immigrants / who came to temporary work this is even more problematic, because or a child can completely lose interest in learning, because he is just bored, or if the family comes back after a few years, then such a child will be the leader in the ranks of those lagging behind in the Russian education system

Now, as usual - what would I do differently :

Other date of moving to Germany

If I knew all about the German school system in advance, and especially one more thing - “confirmation of education received abroad,” I would move my family here six months later or move it all together a year later.

The reason is that by the time of entry into Germany, the eldest had completed half of the 11th grade of the Russian school. Here, because the main school ends in the 9th, real in the 11th and 12th, and the gymnasium is even longer in the 13th, then its 10.5 grades (in their understanding) were recognized as 9 local. On concessions, saying that he almost 11 did not go. Also, they didn’t even test it for knowledge, which they get here at the end of the real one - they tested only what they teach to the most important thing. As a result - he was identified in the 9th grade! It can be said that, on the one hand, a plus will learn German, but by some incredible miracle, after attending integration courses for foreign teenagers (during the year after his arrival), he was not what B1 got without problems - he was told that his level language proficiency is at least C1, but since the school does not test for this level - it will receive a certificate only on B1.

Those. the teenager has been sitting out for a year as a boredom, the 9th grade of basic school, without receiving any knowledge at all. Now in the 10th real school, but so far what he is given has not reached the level of the knowledge that he received in the Russian school.



So a family tip with teenage children - wait until your children graduate from school, all 11 classes. Is that if you are sure that your child is 100% does not want to go on to the German university. Or leave when the child finishes 9 classes of school, because If you wait until the end of the 11th, the child will most likely be over 18. In this case, they simply will not be allowed into Germany, because He is already an adult and after family reunification (if you are going to work, and not as a late migrant) he will not pass.



On this, perhaps, I finish with this series of articles about Germany. If there are any questions or suggestions for writing a sequel - let me know - let's see what we can do with you together.