Primary School (GS)

Fausta Pressacco
Deputy Director
Office of KG/GS
Gabriele Reynolds
Telephone: +49 (0) 89-62 81 6—101
Hélène Weckend
Telephone: +49 (0) 89-62 81 6—120
Telefax: +49 (0) 89-62 81 6—111

To be admitted to first year of the primary school children must have turned six before the end of the calendar year in which they are enrolled.

In the primary school emphasis is placed on mother tongue, mathematics and the first foreign language, but art, music, physical education, environmental studies and religion/ethics are also important, as are "European Hours", when children of different nationalities meet and participate in a variety of activities.

model time table for years 1 and 2

model time table for years 3 to 5

Distribution of teaching hours

Objectives
The European Hours offer children and teachers alike a unique opportunity to engage in an intercultural experience. Due to its project based character, learning can be experienced in many different ways. The European Hours and its theme – “We are Europeans” – can be seen as a preliminary stage in the development of that European identity, which is seen to be self evident at the end of the school career at the ESM. It is therefore particularly important that this subject is taught in a harmonious and encouraging manner. For this reason, it was a conscious decision to have smaller groups in order to work more effectively, more successfully and to obtain results that are visible for the entire school community, i.e. through participating in school projects.

General
The approach adopted in the past two school years, in which the children remain in the same groups for their European Hours lessons as they do for second language lessons, has generated very positive results. In this way, the children find themselves in familiar surroundings and have the opportunity to communicate in a known language as well as playfully and informally practice their second language with ease. To facilitate comprehension, the SWALS children are divided into groups where language spoken is the same as in their normal classes. In these cases the teachers go to great lengths to encourage the integration and the cooperation among the children.

Each school year the children take four different courses, (unless they are participating in an annual course):
4th Year: choir, orchestra, dance, theatre, football
5th Year: choir, orchestra, dance, school newspaper

If the number pupils wanting to participate in the same activity is too large, the groups are formed by drawing lots. The choice of an annual course serves to encourage motivated, active and talented children, who then represent the school at many communal activities, festivals and events.

Courses
In the school year 2010/11; there are 29 courses held by 44 teachers, of which 19 are seconded teachers, organised per semester. In total, the courses are attended by nearly 500 students.

Didactics
The activities organised should be useful and enhance the children’s skills. The themes covered in the European Hours are interdisciplinary and should be related to major school and library events to place the European Hours in a wider context. In school year 2009/10, in the 1 st semester some European Hours courses picked up on the annual school projects “Fall of the Wall” and “Futurism”. In the 2 nd semester the theme “Being Nice to Each Other” was covered in connection with the primary school library project. This school year, the European Hours activities are linked to the large school project “Welfare” and in the first semester cover specifically the “Great Artists” and in the second semester “Cooperation and Learning from Each Other”, which is a perfect follow-up to the “Discovery of the World” course.

The children are given simple but useful tasks, where they can experiment more independently while the teacher s act as coordinators in the background . At the beginning of course, the teacher suggests a programme of reasonable activities and sets in agreement with the children which practical goals they want to achieve at the end of the course.

Presentation of the results
For the children it is important to see visual results. Given the large number of children it is advisable to differentiate between the courses and to set the goals of each course individually:

• The musical activities, theatre and dance courses set themselves the goal of performing at the Christmas concert, on Europe Day and during other school projects
• The school newspaper course agrees upon a certain number of published issues and the children work hard to achieve this. Children who have gained good computer skills through participating in this course, should implement this acquired knowledge in their general class work
• The artistic and culinary courses present their products /results at the end of the semester either by publishing photos and articles in the school newspaper or by presenting them as part of the school projects
• Children who have acquired good gross motor skills by participating in the sports’ activities, should implement these in their sports’ lessons

Evaluation
In the spring, the European Hours are discussed in the European Hours Working Group at the teachers’ conference in order to suggest improvements.
Every 2 years:

• questionnaires will be distributed to the teachers to determine the advantages and disadvantages in the organisation (in June)
• questionnaires will be distributed to the children in each L2-group in order to assess how satisfied the children are(end of semester/year)

Documentation
The coordinator will discuss the course organisation with the Deputy Director of the Primary School. When the Deputy Director has approved the organisation, the coordinator will discuss this with his/her colleagues. At the beginning of the school year, the final version is then again submitted to the Director for approval and then distributed to the teachers. The class teachers then inform the children of the course number, the teacher and the meeting place in the school playground.

European Hours Parents' Info

European Hours overview courses

Sickness and absence registration (Primary School and Kindergarten)
For security reasons, you must inform the school for every day that your child is sick or absent from school, on this number: +49-89-62 81 65 50, only then can we guarantee that no children have gone astray on the way to school. The telephone is manned from 8:00 am onwards. Before this time you can leave a message on the answering machine. After an absence of more than 3 days, a certificate from your doctor must be provided, stating that your child is healthy and fit for school. With this certificate, the children of the nursery and primary sections will be allowed back to school.

List of products and prices (Kiosk and Cafeteria)

Kiosk "Brot und Schule"

Cafeteria"Il Cielo"