International school - will kids be bilingual?

Hi all -

I've searched the posts, but I couldn't find much about this topic. We have just moved to Munich, and we are looking for schools for our 6 year old (1st grade) and 4 year old boy. My husband and I are both Americans, and my husband is a local hire (we will likely stay awhile).

We are trying to enroll our kids in school, but we are "late to the game." Our kids speak very little German (basic German classes up to this point in the states). We are considering the international schools and local German school. Phorms is out since they have no space, and I'm not interested in Waldorf.

Would our kids learn any German at the International schools? Anyone know about St. Anna's Grundschule in lehel (potentially our neighborhood)?

Also, I would love to find a German kindergarten for my little one. It would be nice to find a setting where one teacher spoke a bit of English.

Thanks in advance for your information -

I don't know if it will help you knowing this but my daughter (13) goes to the Bavarian International School. She came here in January with no German at all and she has several german lessons a week in school and most of the children speak german to each other as well. However, the downside is that it takes longer for the children to learn German this way. With your children being so young and having some German it may be better if they went straight to a German school. If my daughter was younger we would have sent her straight to a German school. But in short the answer is yes they learn German at international schools.

I know about St. Anna's Grundshule in Lehel because my daughter went there when we first arrived in Germany. Basically, if you want your children to go to 'normal' German school then they have to learn German first and the St. Anna Grundshule is one of the schools that have these special classes for non German speakers.

Unfortunately, I had a bad experience there. The kids were awful and bullied my daughter. The kids were from poor backgrounds and weren't ex pat kids but rather the kids of people who had fled their own country for a better life. I'm not racist at all but it was mainly Turks and Africans. They were rough kids and not very intelligent.

Having said that, my daughter did learn German very quickly and instead of staying there for the two years they are supposed to, they said she was so good that she could go to a 'normal' German school after about a year I think it was.

So basically, while I really disagree with sending kids to international school and think that they should integrate and go to German school, I have to say, I wish we hadn't had to go down the St. Anna route.

That sounds like a terrible experience. Is there another grundschule option in Lehel? I couldn't find one. We may or may not get the apartment anyway.

I don't think there are many of these schools who take non German speakers. I lived about 30 minutes away from Lehel and St. Anna was the closest one to us. Basically what I did was go to the local German school and that is where they sent us. Perhaps when you do get an apartment you can find the nearest school and ask.

I wish you lots of luck and hope that whatever you choose your kids have a happy experience and end up speaking brilliant German!

Unfortunately, as far as I can see, students at the International school do not end up speaking very much German. I have known students go there from the European school because they were not good enough in German and managed to get through the International School because german wasn't so important. I must admit I have heard similar stories about St. Anna. There are many good Grundschulen in and around central Munich to choose from. We are southeast Munich so I don't know them all. I would certainly recommend German Kindergarten and Grundschule as opposed to the international schools - its much better when all your friends live in neighbourhood - and you can communicate with the other kids in the street/playground !

So it sounds like some schools may take kids with little or no German, and some schools simply send everyone to St. Annas? Does anyone know of schools in Munich that take non-germans, and who would just let us get a tutor? We're looking in Bogenhausen, Haidhausen, Lehel, Schwabing, Au, Ludwigworstadt. Thanks, and I'll also start another topic about this specifically -

Kathleen

My 6 year old daughter is starting German school in Sept after two years of kindergarten and speaks fluently. So, I feel lucky that we moved here early enough for her to have that time. My 4 year old son has two more years of kindergarten before school, so should also be fine.

If you are planning to stay for a while, it is probably worth going the German school option, we at least plan to do it for Grundschule and then will reevaluate depending on our plans/need to get back into an English speaking system.

They will learn quickly, however I think it is important to visit some schools first and talk to them about what their plans would be for dealing with your child. And then find your apartment based on that. I know another lady here who moved to Ismaning based on her school visits as was putting a non German speaking child straight into 1st class and another lady who has had a good experience in Germering. Maybe in the "country" there are less foreigners so they are more interested in helping?

I don´t know how our school in Tumblingerstr would have dealt with my daughter fresh off the boat, I think currently she will get special German classes once a week (for the foreign kids).

Yes, I think your children would learn to speak German at an international school. The international school that we visited had a German-as-a-second-language course. Also, we found that German was spoken almost extensively on the playground, or anywhere out of the classroom setting.

Our experience is with German Kindergarten, and entering a German Kindergarten created even more stress for our 4-5 year-old than we expected. Yes, kids of this age are very flexible and adaptable, but expect it to be difficult for them considering all the changes, and this may delay German language acquisition a bit. I think possibly an environment with both English and German spoken may have sped up learning German, at least in the first year. Our two year old began Kindergarten with much more ease; she is very verbal in English, but she is maybe too young to understand that German and English are two separate languages... and so she simply is learning a different word for everything.