German School

In late August, Leah moved from the local kindergarten (Bambini) to the German kindergarten; a switch which went fairly smoothly. It probably helped that Hannah was just one building over, and that Leah was already friends with one girl in her new class. With both kids at the same school, we decided that Andrea would drive them to school, stay and work from nearby the school or at the school itself, then drive them home afterwards, rather than using the school bus (which was fairly expensive, and took a long time). It did cause some problems with Leah running out of her class looking for Andrea at the beginning, but it settled down and Leah seems fine, with a few German words already coming.

Hannah moved up from the kindergarten to the primary school (you need to be 6 to start the primary school), and though it didn't really seem like a big deal to me (she's already had her first day at kindergarten in Beijing, and in Shenzhen and in Nairobi, and now she was only moving from one building to another one), it was celebrated as a big thing at the German School. There was a whole ceremony with a show from older primary school kids, speeches, photos and shultute that parents watched. I am not sure Hannah felt particularly different compared to kindergarten, and the schedule is still similar with classes in the mornings and after-school activities in the afternoons. 

She does, finally, have more normal school lessons (as the kindergarten is not very academic in the German system, but primary school is) with maths, english, german, art, science and even ethics. They start learning to read and write (in German, they won't confuse the kids with reading/writing English until next year) using an approach focusing on syllables rather than letters. And they have homework. Hannah has always enjoyed doing homework since she had it in kindergarten in Shenzhen. Long may that continue!

The afternoon activities at the German school are quite good for both Leah and Hannah. Leah is doing cooking, karate, ballet and swimming for example. Hannah is doing cycling, scouts and ballet. The Chinese teacher also comes to kindergarten to do some lessons a few times a week, to fill in some gaps. So far everything is going well though it is becoming more demanding for us parents. Not only the homework support but also teacher-parent days and much more. They are very keen to keep parents informed on what the kids do and how to help them.

Their classmates are a big mix: the German school (especially at the playgroup and kindergarten stage) is quite popular amongst Kenyans, and also non-Germans who like the "play rather than study" approach, or just like the location of the school. As kids get older though the numbers tend to fall, and usually there is only one class per year group (which means class sizes of around 20-25, though this year Hannah's year has two classes, each around 17 kids per class), and more of those remaining are of course those who are German, half-German or German speaking, but that still leaves quite a diverse group of classmates. All communication with parents is in both English and German since at least one of the parents often doesn't speak German.

The school is celebrating its 50th anniversary next year but it's current compound is less than a decade old I think. It has all the normal things a school should have along with a swimming pool, volleyball court, tennis court etc. Although its certainly not the most modern or grandest school in town compared to some others, at least some of the fees seem to be reinvested into the facilities quite regularly. The focus is really on the teaching and activities for children than facilities, and so far so good!