Have a look around this page to find out about school in Germany. 

Here are a couple of facts about primary school to get you started

• The children begin primary school (Grundschule) at the age of 6 in first grade. They finish at 10 years of age in fourth grade. They must then go to secondary school!

• School begins at 8.00 and ends at 1.15. This means that children have to get up early, but they can play all afternoon long!

• School in Germany is very like school here in Ireland. It's a good idea to find out about schools in different countries because then you can figure out what's good or bad about what you do in your own country. 

The Story of a Third-grader

This is a story of a little girl I was talking to from third grade in a school in Wiesbaden. Read the story and decide if you think school there is any more fun than here!

As you can see, this girl really likes school. Can you think of any reasons that make her like school more than children in Ireland? Talk about it with your friends and maybe you can even come up with some good ideas for your school...

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SUBJECTS

The subjects that children in German schools do are pretty much the same as the subjects we do here in Ireland. However, there are some differences.

• Maths, Sport, Art, German, Religion and Sachunterricht are studied by all students.

• Sachunterricht is sort of a mixture of History, Geography and Science. Literally, it means 'teaching about things'!

• When pupils reach third grade, they must choose whether they would like to learn English or French. They then have a chance to learn a foreign language. Do you think this is a good idea? Most of the children there like to learn a foreign language because their teachers make it lots of fun for them.

• They don't learn any Irish in Germany! But when I was teaching in a school there, I taught them some Irish words like 'Conas atá tú?'. They were very good at it!

• The children have different teachers for different subjects. They have the same teachers for some subjects but swap more often than we do in Irish schools.

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TIMETABLE

Here is a timetable of a typical school day for children in fourth grade in Germany.

If you look carefully at the timetable, you'll find that their school day is shorter than the one in Ireland. A school day in Ireland usually lasts from 9.00 to 2.30 or 9.30 to 3.00.

What would you prefer? Would you prefer to go to school later, and finish up later, or just wake up early and have the whole afternoon to play? It's a hard decision to make.

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Break-times

At 9.30, the children get a chance to have a snack. This is called their breakfast break. See German Food for more information. They all bring their own snacks, which is usually a sandwich of bread and cheese or ham. They can get water or milk at school. The children are usually very neat and tidy during break-times and they all have their own place-mat on which they eat their breakfast.

After eating their breakfast, the children get a chance to go outside and play with each other for around fifteen minutes. They play lots of different types of games, mostly running and jumping games. They often play games with skipping ropes. Later on in the day, there is another break. This break is only for going outside for some fresh air.

Can you see many similarities and differences between your school and German schools? Talk about it with your friends...