German Law About Teachers Selecting Students

Hi,
This is my first post on this site...I have been reading posts here for some time now...Here is my issue:

We arrived in Berlin this January and signed our 8 yr child up in one of the Europa schools here.All I can say at this time is its not one of the english ones. We were informed that she would be in school for a full year without grades and then write a test to see which grade she should be in...The principal was away the day we registered her...8 working days later we received a letter from the principal asking us to come in the next day...We were told that the german teacher could not teach her math because our daughter didn't speak german. They recommended we take her to a german school...Does that make sense?
To make a long story short basically the teacher didn't want to teach our daughter...the mother tongue teacher said she had come far in one week while the German teacher didn't bother with her at all was just negative...The principal told us that we must go elsewhere...When we asked about coming back in Sept. she laughed sarcastically and said leave the child where it will be...She would not answer what are the prerequisites(sp?) were for a student to attend her school.
Basically what we understood was that the principal was doing the teacher her friend a favour...We dont have proof of this but have heard from others that this principal has done this before and many other things but that is hearsay...
We feel that our daughter's rights have been abused...this is discrimination!!!
Please understand that we like it here and have met many great german people and have been helped by many...We feel this principal and teacher are giving this country a bad name and we will fight to get her out of the school...Dictatorship in a primary school is scary...We ask for any information to help us fight this we have contacted people and are still working on it...PLEASE let us know your opinion or anywhere we can contact to get these women investigated...I would especially like to hear from the German people here...Thank you very much in advance. If you would like to contact me privately my email is selene13_99@yahoo.com

Thank you.

I Havent been to Berlin for a very long time, But if the British army still has base there then you could take your child to an army school but you would probably have to pay for it.,
I once asked the school in bielefeld if my daughter could go to there school, they had no objections.

The British Army pulled out of Berlin years ago I'm afraid.

Is this school regarded as a private school? From what I have read on the Europa School web site it looks like it might be but it does not actually say.

If it is private then I doubt that you can do anything about them refusing to take your child regardless of discrimination. I found the website a tad difficult to understand (could well be me ) but it comes over that their aim is to get their pupils speaking multi languages. It may be that they are worried that having a child that has to first learn German before then learning the other languages (in German) will be a problem or, who knows, will effect their school results/rating. This is only my thoughts Im afraid as I dont have any experiance of any of this.

My daughter went to a school in Mönchengladback which is one of a number of schools that have a few classes that take children that do not speak German. I cant remember what the sceme was called though. They are tought German in a fast track kind of way as well as doing the normal subjects. All classes are in German as the kids come from far and wide speaking a lot of different languages (my daughter being the only English speaking one). After a year, if they have learnt enough German they then go into the German main steam German part of the school. After 5 months we moved to France but my daughter had learnt enought german to then go to a Gymnasium school in nearby Germany.

That was probebly not much help to you but I hope you can keep us updated on how you get on.

Best of Luck

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies...Europa schools are government funded bi-lingual schools.The second language is our mother tongue(not english but I cant say which language at this time because it would be easy to figure out which school it is and I must be careful what I write)

From what we understand the teacher in german did want to teach her because she didn't know german but we found out from the parents' association that she could have been taught other subjects in mother tongue(which she speaks and reads) and be taught beginner german to catch up...but the principal refused any possibility of this happening...Social workers and others have tried to help us and are still working on it...We have written the principal letters and gotten very vague answers to only some of the questions...She refuses to meet with us and the investigating authorities didn't seem to willing to help...we still have a long way to go...but at this point feel that giving up and forgetting about it won't help the children coming from my country to live here in the future.
We have lost much sleep at night because of this and I have no idea what will happen...I will keep you informed when I know more...

From what I can tell these schools are based on a public-private partnership. You will need to know how much control the private side has on admissions and what the school have to achive to keep the private side happy.

Sounds like the pricipal is being unflexable as far as the normal educational process in the school but how much she can enforce this is what you need to know and it sounds like thats the problem you are having.

Do you have any other school options in your area?

As far as I know it is publicly funded...we don't pay...Still trying to find out more information but due to holidays things are on hold til after Easter...She will probably go to the german school in our area...but we really wanted her to continue in our mother tongue as well...but she can do that a couple of times a week in a private school...But we don't want to just let this principal continue to get away with this...we know it has happened to other children but have no proof only what others have told us...We will be meeting with some people after the holidays...
By the way HAPPY EASTER to all of you...and thanks again for your input.

Hi Selene,

my expirience with german schools is that if you have problems with them they will take it out on your child. this has happened with all my kids. the latest with my daughter. if you try and fight them you end up loosing (your child looses more)

the best is to find another school and let her get on with her education.

this might not seem a good bit of help if you definately want her to go to this particular school but think it over. if she does get back in then get on the class council (Eltern Sprecher) this does help then.

Happy Easter too

Ahh...You've got to love Berlin and Berliners haven't you eh??? ("Ich bin ein doughnut" - Yes you certainly are!) it's like a different country.

My mother's lived in Charlottenburg in the old British sector off the Heerstrasse for years and I still can't understand how a whole city of people can be so rude and xenophobic - Even by German standards!

She moved to Falkensee recently which is about 10 minutes drive from Spandau so still close to Berlin Zentrum, but Berliners don't consider it to be part of the capital and it shows - Went to Berlin to help her move and found the people in this little town to be friendly, helpful, accepting of newcomers (yes even Brits and I was surprised).

I'm not too certain how the German schooling system works but as my Ma' moved to Berlin when my Sister was just 8 years old I do know that she went to a school in Berlin that taught in German but took a hell of a lot of American, Canadian and British kids none of whom had any German knowledge.
They only taught in German so the kids learned quickly

Perhaps it would be worth taking advice from an Embassy in Berlin that represents an English speaking country. Parents working there will have to send their kids somewhere and they don't all use private schools!

Otherwise the British Council in Koln is probably worth a try - I've always found them to be very helpful.

When your daughter reaches the last year of Grundschule her teacher will recommend what type of school she attends next and in this respect teachers have the potential to discriminate, knowingly or subconsiously, by determining what sort of future education their pupls will receive. Bearing this in mind you may think a change of school is worth the effort. If you want your daughter to stay in the German system you could put her on to an intensive German course while you checkout the attitudes of other schools. This may be expensive but may cost less in the long run than an international school.

One of the measures in the PISA study which Germany did particularly badly on was the difference betrween the highest and lowest achievers. It appears that while Germany has many children doing extremely well it also has a dispropoprtionately large group of children going through the system without ever learning basic literacy skills , possibly because they haven't learnt the language or because the teachers haven't the skill or talent to work with those who need to catch up.

hi all,

Thank you for all your replies...We are still looking into the discrimination at this Europa school but it hasn't been easy...Our daughter is going to the other Europa school of our mother tongue and seems to be happy there...She will probably finish off the year there and we will see what happens...We don't know how this will end up but at least she is in school and happy...I wish you all well and thanks again for taking the time to respond...