A Day in the Life of a German 5^th grader…

Serena wakes up at 6:20, leaves for the bus stop at 7:05 and arrives at school at 7:45. (Yes, I do miss that late start time of 9:10 at MGIS!) All children who live 3 km or farther from their school are issued a complimentary bus pass for the whole city.  We luckily made that by four houses!  Her day officially begins at 8 at the Mädchen Realschule in Neumarkt, an all girl’s school.  A Realschule is from grades 5-10, after which graduates can start an apprenticeship or transfer to a Gymnasium, which goes until 12^th grade and is the prerequisite step if you’d like to go on to college.  

Over the course of the first 4 days of school, Serena brought home very specific supply lists from 9 teachers for 10 different subjects!  If only we had a Walmart here… We seriously went shopping every afternoon because she'd need the supplies for the next day. One new item is a Füller – a fountain pen required for all in class work and homework.  If you make a mistake, no problem, just pull out your Tintenkiller (ink killer)!  There are no lockers, so the kids haul their backpacks around all day. The majority of her school books stay at home though as she only brings that day’s books.  No bubblers either so the girls must bring their own water bottles.   

She has 2 classes back to back then a Pause for 15 minutes, 2 more 45 minute lessons then another Pause then the last two classes.  During the breaks, she eats a snack from home or she can buy something from the Imbiss at her school (rolls, pretzels, pastries, ice cream, etc.)  Serena loves this. There’s even a cappuccino/latte machine for the kids.  During these breaks, 2-3 teachers patrol the halls but since the students are allowed to stay in their classrooms, most of the 1150 students are unsupervised! 

Yes, it is a public school!

Two students share a desk for a quarter of the year then they can switch.  Since the class stays as a group for each subject and the teachers come to the rooms, there’s definitely not as much ownership in rooms so few teachers hang up posters or room decorations. Each lesson begins when the teacher first addresses the students and they stand up and answer in unison “Guten Morgen Frau/Herr X.”  Serena has a double lesson occasionally which is great for subjects that benefit from longer instruction times like swimming in Gym class and Art.  Her other subjects include: German Grammar, German Reading, Math, Religion (Catholic), English, Biology, and Music.  Parents have the option to petition to have their daughter released from Religion or to attend the Lutheran ethics lessons but it seemed like a lot of steps to get the Bishop’s permission so we adopted a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding Serena’s non-Catholicness.  English class is the least demanding of course – a recent assignment: “How many colours can you name?“ She nailed that one!  Grading is quite different here – each academic subject’s grade is based solely on 4 things, two announced tests and 2 pop quizzes which are limited to material covered in the previous 6 lessons. 

School ends between 12:15 and 1 pm depending on the day.  On Tuesdays however, her class has Choir and Vocal Training which goes til 3:15.  

 She normally has an hour of homework a day.  Our whole family rhythm has changed dramatically because she normally gets home around 1:30.  We eat lunch around 2 and although the kids have a shorter school day, they don’t get recess as such and are often wound up and need to detox once they’re home so the homework doesn’t get started til 4:00 anyway.  When asked for her thoughts on attending a German school, she’ll quickly say she likes it because of the admittedly distracting yet fantastic view from the school (see photos below) and the awesome field trips - the first Wandertag was to a Monkey Joe’s type place for the whole school day!

These little guys are huge distractors for the kids - RIGHT outside the window!