Back to School + Starting Preschool: How’s it going?

Dear users, dear authors,
how are things going right now with school and kindergarten—with the start of the school year in the fall, the transition to a new school, or starting kindergarten?

@Authors,
do you need or want a promotional thread for this?

It’s still a good 8 weeks until the new school year starts here :-) but this year, Bavaria isn’t bringing up the rear—it’s Baden-Württemberg.
School starts again here on September 8, 2020, and that’s when my youngest granddaughter will be moving up to high school; she’s already looking forward to it, and with her grade point average (1.3)  she won’t have too much trouble. For her cousin, this is his final year of school—let’s see how he does, since he’s going through a full-blown puberty phase, and my daughter is complaining a lot about it. I just laugh—the boy reminds me of his mom in so many ways :-)

Our grandson is supposed to start school this year. So far, parents haven’t received any information on whether the event will take place at all—and if so, how the day will be celebrated.

In our family, this is actually a big celebration. Godparents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles come to visit and spend the day with him at school.

We’ll have to see how it goes this year. In any case, our Jax is really excited that he’ll soon be a schoolkid and get to learn lots of new things.

Back to school. Our oldest granddaughter is starting school. No one knows how it’s going to go. We haven’t heard anything from the school.
It’s just a difficult situation this year.

Gabi

My kids are in 5th and 8th grade at a Gymnasium. Today I got an email explaining how the last three days of this school year will be organized. Between the Pentecost and summer holidays, each year group had in-person classes for two weeks. In addition, as planned by the Ministry of Education, we have the option of registering the kids for the last two weeks of the holidays in the “Lernbrücke” program on a binding basis. We’ll also get an email from the teachers if necessary, or we parents can decide ourselves and fill out the registration form. 

As for the start of school itself, at the moment there is only the “Concept for Regular Operations Under Pandemic Conditions,” which has already been covered in the media. 

No one can plan the final start of the new school year yet anyway. The information will come shortly before school starts, once the school office is staffed again. 

My youngest daughter is starting kindergarten after summer break, in mid-August, and will thus be “starting school.” We live in Switzerland in the canton of Zurich, where compulsory education begins at age 4. Since regular in-person classes have been back in session at kindergarten and primary school (= elementary school) since June 8, the first day of school will likely go ahead as usual. Unfortunately, the first day of school isn’t celebrated as big a deal here as it is in Germany—the kids get to color a postcard and attach it to a balloon. All the kids from kindergarten and lower elementary then release the balloons together. After that, all the kids go to their classrooms, and that’s it. My kids will still get a “Schultüte” (school goodie bag) for their first day of school, but only once we’re back home :-)

A discussion thread on this topic would actually be really nice—there are quite a few authors who have great patterns and ideas on this.

Best wishes, and happy summer vacation to all the kids, followed by a great start to the school year!

How are things going with school and kindergarten right now?

Things are going great for us—we’re already in our third week of school, and we’ve (almost) got the morning routine of getting ready for school and kindergarten down pat. Aside from the mask requirement at the parent-teacher conference and the various hygiene rules, school operations haven’t been restricted by COVID-19 so far, thankfully. 

Starting school in the EF (10th grade at a Gymnasium)—sooooo great :-/
In North Rhine-Westphalia, masks were required at first, but since yesterday they’re no longer required (though, thank God, the school is voluntarily continuing with them).

The situation: hardly any information to none at all. Out of 8 to 9 school periods, my child spends between one and four free periods standing around in the schoolyard because the teachers are busy with other things (the math teacher is also the vice principal, so they’ve only had one full math period so far!). In the schoolyard, they’re only allowed to stand in designated areas and hope there’s no rain (hail, thunderstorms, etc.). Because only the lower grades are allowed into a classroom during bad weather :-)))
Starting in the upper grades (EF), there are only courses… but no Plan B for bad weather (and I’m not usually picky, but standing in a completely tree-covered schoolyard during a thunderstorm strikes me as questionable).

I understand the principals’ predicament (my friend is the principal of an elementary school), but I do wonder why the digital learning platform that was introduced isn’t being continued—or wasn’t continued—to make up for such free periods, for example… but what am I saying… I’m already looking forward to the class of 2022. North Rhine-Westphalia already has such a great reputation when it comes to the Abitur anyway. Right now, I’m thinking we might as well have picked a tree nursery :-/

But we’re not alone—Dortmund, Bochum, Castrop, Herne… the same amount of canceled classes for upper-level students everywhere ;-)

Is everything going well?

Leo will also be starting childcare on November 1, at a childminder's.
I’m already quite nervous and don’t know whether I should be happy about it or not.
Since it’s a very small group (only 7 toddlers), I’m hopeful that we won’t be affected too much by COVID-19.