Hello,
We (English husband, German wife, living currently in England with 2 boys aged 6 and 9) are considering moving to HH.
I did my best to teach my boys German - they can understand me, they can speak it when visiting family in Germany but generally will answer me in English when I speak to them. With a move to Germany on the horizon I would not want to throw them into a full German Grundschule or weiterfuehrende Schule that has no English. I'm less concerned about the 6 year old...he'd pick it up but for my eldest it would be quite a shock so want to ease this as much as possible.
I found 2 schools that have 'Immersion' classes where some lessons are taught in English and others in German. Both have co-operations with secondary schools that support bilingual English in some lessons.
This sounds ideal....question is: How do I get into these schools?
I grew up in a small German village where your Grundschule was determined by where you lived...north of a road you went to school A, south of a road you went to school B. I assume things have changed ;-) I read on another forum post that I would need to register children with the local authorities and they will find a school place? That seems wrong to me as I would think especially for Grundschule where you live will be taken into account? Should I just move to an area that is close to one of the schools and hope for the best? Or can I get a school place first and then find accommodation?
Any advice greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone has any names for schools that teach bilingual I would appreciate it.
Primary/ Secondary school in HH with bilingual option
"This sounds ideal....question is: How do I get into these schools?" The best is to have an address in the neighborhood of the school. In Hamburg you don't have a real choice in which school your kids can go... the distance to the nearest school counts. There are maybe exceptions, but in that case I would contact the schools directly. Once you are in the school, you stay in. Where you live (Meldebestätigung) is important. If you know someone living in that area, there are ways to legally trick that out a bit, as we did with our kid 2006. But I am not sure if it is still possible.
Concerning school suggestions, you should name the two schools you found out already, so no one starts listing the same schools here.
Hamburg is a really big city, do you know already in which district you want to move to?
Hey, Thanks Rob for your help. That's good to know that it's done by distance.
The schools I found are Grundschule Vizelinstrasse and Schule an der Gartenstadt.
I went on the Hamburg Bildungsministerium site and did a search...these were the ones that popped up (the search was not the best) and looks like there are more but the webpage was awful so I lost the will to live at some point and gave up...
I'm quite open to districts. At some point we will need to take a look around and see where we want to be but at this stage we have no preference.
Thanks!
The system of having to attend the nearest school still exists in principle (and only for primary schools), but it is easy to get an exemption if you have a good reason.
Bilingual (secondary) schools are not meant to ease transition for foreign kids, but to teach more English to local ones. This might not be what you want. I have written about them a few times on this forum, so you may search for those posts.
I agree that your small child will not have any problems picking up the language quickly - and for the older one immersion classes ("Förderklasse") are ideal - he/she will be able to join the normal stream after a year or less. I also wrote about those before!
I agree with Beppi, your kids will pick up the language fast, even faster not being on a bilingual school.
The only thing I would recommend is to move somewhere near a bilingual secondary school for later, so they can choose bilingual profile courses and don't have to travel with bus & train.
My kid was on the bilingual Gymnasium Meiendorf und chose "International Relations" for his last two high school years. His English skills helped alot achieving a great Abiturnote ...
The general quality of the elementary school is more important than if it's bilingual. The only reason choosing a school with more English languaged lessons is if you are planning to definitely leave Germany soon again. But in this case the International Schools in Hamburg are maybe the better option.
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