socrates74

very grateful for the responses so far. Just wanted to add that my son is fully integrated, been in normal german kita, kindergarten, school. So while it will take some work, I am not concerned about him keeping up basic German. More concerned about the actual material of 4. Klasse Deutsch and the formal requirements of moving on.

jeba: thanks, that is a really interesting suggestion. Do you have any experience with that? It's a bit hard to tell how the instruction works.

We don't want to repeat a year. He's already on the older side of his class.

Would you think that it would be better to miss grade 5? I don't know if the bureaucratic problems would be fewer or more.  

Thanks all. We would definitely either send him to a German school in the US or have some serious tutoring going on to keep up the German. He already speaks English, but will have to learn to write in English (he can read mostly). Grades are good enough but not stellar.

Thinking of going to the US for my kid's 4th grade. Kid is currently in 3rd grade here in Bavaria. What effect would a year outside Germany have for applying to a gymnasium? Will things be more difficult? Thanks