We were told about it when after coming to Switzerland 4 years ago our oldest Leona (then 7years old) was put straight away into first class without knowing a single word of German and she was lost and struggling (of course) when a sub teacher who was there shortly saw her struggles and right away called us in to explain about this special school where alot of kids learning the language can go, the classes are smaller and they can get alot more one on one, so after visiting the child psychologist who needed to give permission to attend the special school she was moved 3 months later and once there she really blossomed, made friends and learned German so that once she went to second class she was better able to keep up.
then our next child Raymond, who had just gone through two years of Swiss kindy and was fluent in Swiss-German went to first class only to be moved a few months later as well because he was having trouble understanding Hoch Deutsch, he is now completing his second year of first class and is also doing really well.
On to child number three Roderick who is 6 years old and still in his last year of kindergarten, yay, anyway so we were thinking(along with his amazing kindy teacher) that of course he will probably need to go to this special school as even though his Swiss-German is coming along the normal school is in Hoch Deutsch (high German) so she helped us by making a referral to the child psychologist who needs to "ok" a child going there, after several visits where she did some stuff with Roderick to find out where is was in regards to his age range she concluded that he is eligible to attend the special school.
He can not wait to start after the summer holidays and we are of course very happy that he will not have to be moved after three months like the other two but can start straight away
3 comments:
It's wonderful that your kids were / will be able to benefit from Einführungsklasse, giving them a great experience about learning and succeeding as opposed to thinking "school sucks" early on!
Sounds like you're also surrounded by supportive teachers and child psychologists which isn't always the case.
Yes, we are very lucky esp as we randomly chose this town to live in after meeting a very nice couple who lived here, I have heard some stories to the opposite extreme and I'm very thankful that my kids have been given an excellent chance, thanks for mentioning the name, I had heard it but my German is terrible so I could not for the life of me remember :D
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