German primary school

4th grade. Gymnasium or Realschule?

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What secondary school to choose – Gymnasium or Realschule? High school choice is not as obvious now as it used to be. Secondary education in Germany has changed significantly over the past 15 years.

I have so far examined the structure of education in half of the federal states (see the topics “Schools after the Grundschule”) and will continue to do so.

The main conclusion: the idea “if you want to go to a university, you need to fight to get into a gymnasium” in most Bundeslands no longer works. The strictest vertical is preserved in Bavaria and Saxony.

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School supplies in Germany. Notebooks, folders, art lessons

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In the first part about school supplies in Germany there were satchels, pencil cases and how to deal with theft, in the second there were pencils, rulers, erasers, sharpeners and pens. Now let’s move on to notebooks, numerous types of folders, materials for art and some furniture.

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School supplies in Germany. 2. Pencils, pens (Füller) and others

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The first part is about satchel, pencil cases, sports bags and theft of the school supplies. Let’s go further down the list – to pencils and pens as school supplies.

Important: pencils, pens, sharpeners, erasers, and rulers should be purchased also for “home-use”. That means you schould buy all things in double amount. If your child takes a pencil case out of his satchel to do his homework, then he is on the right way to forget everything at home one beautiful day.

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Primary school. School supplies in Germany

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Over the five years of purchasing school lists I gathered some tips for school supplies in Germany.

General warning: teachers do not always know well what they want and how much their wishes are reflected on store shelves. Therefore, do not panic, be creative with the lists and do not be afraid to send your child to school with materials that do not quite match. The first class has everything stricter than others, but you have the opportunity to clarify at the first meeting, which takes place before the beginning of the year or immediately after the beginning of the year. The rest have at least a week to clarify, and even more.

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Non-Speaking child. 3. Speech delay treatment in Germany

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Now we come to most important question: “What to do?” In other words – to speech delay treatment in Germany. In the first part it was a question “What is happening?” In the second part – “What is the cause?”

Let’s try to go from symptoms, not from age. And at the end also two important questions: What can you do yourself? and How to convince a pediatrician, that your child needs an examination?

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Bilingual children. 1. Strategy and rules

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Now people are so mobile that you will not surprise anyone with a multilingual family. For expats parents, this problem, which languages their children speak, take up a lot of time, it cannot be solved easily and forever. More precisely, this is the only way: no language – no problem, but this option is not suitable for everyone.

The main thing that you must remember is that there is no real bilingual child “by itself, out of air”. This is always the work of the parents, which may not be obvious to an outside observer.

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German school cone (Schultüte). How to make

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Schultüte selbst basteln / How to make german school cone

In my opinion, self-made German school cone look better than purchased ones. But still, you need to spend reasonable time and reasonable money on creating a cone. Otherwise, just buy and not rack your brains. In the last week before the Einschulung, ready-made Schultüte are very inexpensive.

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