Saturday 30 November 2013

Questionnaire: Finnish questions about German school

These are the questions classes 5 and 6 from Saari primary school in Mäntsälä, Finland, asked their partner class in Germany!


1. What’s the name of your school?
Our school's name is “Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium”. It was named after Marion Gräfin Dönhoff (1909-2002), a German journalist and publicist who spoke up for tolerance and justice.

2. How many pupils, teachers, school assistants etc. are there at your school?
There are 1039 pupils, 85 teachers, three secretaries, one school assistant and one janitor at our school.

3. What time do you start and finish school?
We start school at 7.45am and usually go home at 1.05pm. Older students often have classes till 3.00pm.

4. How do you go to school?
The students who live in Nienburg usually go by bike, walk or take the bus; those who live in the villages around Nienburg go by bus.

5. How many lessons do you have a week?
At the moment we have 29 lessons a week. Many students take part in extracurricular activities, they have 31 lessons a week.

6. What subjects do you study?
These are our subjects during this term: German, English, Latin, Maths, Music, Art, Geography, Physics, RE, PE, Tuition. Some subjects vary, so during some terms we have Biology or Chemistry instead of Physics, or History instead of Geography.

7. How many English lessons do you have a week?
We have four English lessons a week.

8. Do you have a lot of homework?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the subjects.

9. What types of grades do you have in your school report?
We have grades from 1 to 6. 1 is the best grade.

10. At what age do you start school in Germany?
We start school at the age of 6 in Germany.

11. Do you have school lunch? Is it free?
Our school offers lunch, but as our lessons end at 1.05pm, most students usually have lunch at home.
School lunch is NOT free in Germany.

12. When are your holidays?
Summer holidays: They begin at the end of June or in July and end either in August or September. They're six weeks long.
Autumn holidays: Two weeks in October
Christmas holidays: Two weeks from Christmas to Epiphany
Winter holidays: The last two weekdays of January
Easter holidays: Two weeks around Easter

13. Do you learn any other foreign languages besides English?
Yes, we do. Every student has to learn a second foreign language as of grade six. At our school you can choose between French, Spanish and Latin. Our class learns Latin.
14. How long are your breaks and what do you do during the breaks? 
There is a five-minute-break after lesson 1, 3 and 5, a 20-minute-break after lesson 2 and a 15-minute-break after lesson 4. Our class usually plays table tennis during the breaks. Other students play basketball, walk around the schoolyard or just hang around.

Questionnaire: German questions about Finnish school

These are the questions class 6b from Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium in Nienburg, Germany, asked their partner class in Finland!


1. What’s your school’s name? 
The name of our school is Saari primary school.

2. When do you start school in the mornings? When do you go home?
We start school at 8.15 in the mornings and go home at 12.15, 13.15 or 14.15 depending on our timetable.

3. How many teachers work at your school? 
There are 6 teachers at our school and a school assistant. A special needs teacher comes to our school twice a week.

4. How many students are there at your school? 
There are 106 students at our school. Our school is quite small.

5. How many classes are there at your school?
 There are 6 classes (class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) and a preschool class.

6. When are your holidays? 
In autumn term we have a one-week holiday in October and our Christmas holiday is usually 1 or 2 weeks long. In spring term we have a one-week holiday in February and our summer holiday is from June to August (about 10 weeks). 

7. When do you get your school reports? '
We get our school reports twice a year, before Christmas and on the last school day in spring.

8. How many breaks have you got and how long are they? 
We have breaks after each lesson and they are 15 minutes.

9. What do you do during the breaks? 
We hang around, play football, play tag and chat with each other.

10. Do you get a lot of homework?
We think that we get quite a lot of homework.

11. What subjects do you have? 
We study Finnish, English, Maths, Biology, Geography, History, Music, RE, Technical Work, Textile Work, PE, Art, Physics and Chemistry.

12. In what grade do you start learning English in Finland?
 Usually in the 3rd grade.

13. Do you learn another foreign language apart from English? 
No, we don't. But in some primary schools you can study extra languages like German, French or Swedish.

14. Do you have lunch at school? 
We have free school lunch every day at our school canteen.

Thanks for your answers!!!!!
:-)
Class 6b from Nienburg (Germany)


Thursday 28 November 2013

Our timetables


Marion-Dönhoff Gymnasium

This is class 6b's current timetable:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
7.45-8.30
English
Latin
Maths
Maths
Geography
8.35-9.20
English
English
English
Maths
Geography
9.40-10.25
Maths
German
Tuition
Art
German
10.30-11.15
Music
German
German
Art
Music
11.30-12.15
Latin
RE
PE
Physics
Latin
12.20-1.05
Latin
RE
PE
Physics
---

In Germany, we usually get timetables for one term, i.e one from about August to January and one from February to about June or July.
Depending on the grade and term, some subjects change: Whereas German, English, Maths and the second foreign language (and usually Music, Art, RE and PE) are taught in every grade and term, other subjects may vary, e.g. Biology, Chemistry and Physics; History and Geography.
In grade 6 students start to learn a second foreign language. At our school they can choose between French, Spanish and Latin. As you can see above, class 6b is a "Latin class".

Saari primary school:

Class 6

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
8.15-9.00 Finnish/English Maths
Maths RE
9.15-10.00 English/Finnish Finnish Finnish Biology * Maths/ English
10.15-11.00 Music History History Finnish English/maths
11.30-12.15 Physics ** Music Art Literature Art
12.30-13.15 Maths
RE Technical/
textile work
PE
13.30-14.15 PE

Technical/
textile work
PE
** / chemistry


Class 5

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
8.15-9.00
Maths RE Maths Finnish
9.15-10.00 Finnish /maths Finnish Biology Art Maths
10.15-11.00 PE History History Art Music
11.30-12.15 Finnish / maths Biology Physics* Finnish PE
12.30-13.15 English

Technical/ textile work English
13.30-14.15 Music

Technical/ textile work

* / chemistry

We have the same timetable for the whole school year. We start studying English in grade 3 and have 2 English lessons a week. We don't study any other foreign languages but in many primary schools in Finland you can choose a second foreign language.




Wednesday 20 November 2013

Our project in the media



This article about our eTwinning project and our first Skype meeting was published in Nienburg's newspaper on 17 November 2013.

The article and some photos have also been published on Lower Saxony's official educational server "Niedersächsischer Bildungsserver". This is the link:

www.nibis.de/nibis.phtml?menid=6195



Monday 11 November 2013

Skype meeting on 11 November 2013 - meeting each other and starting our project

We started our eTwinning project "Crossing the Baltic Sea: A Finnish-German Adventure" on 11 November 2013. In Finland and in Germany we introduced ourselves and met our new friends in our skype meeting. The groupleaders in both countries said a few words about our project and after them all the other pupils in the project introduced themselves. It was great to see everybody :) This was a fantastic start for our project. We can keep in touch via Twinspace where we all have our profiles. Our next topic is presenting our schools and we will present some of our work in this blog, too.
Two groupleaders from Saari primary school seen here at Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium via skype.



  Pupils at Saari primary school are listening to the pupils at Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium introducing themselves.


Class 6 at Saari primary school 




Pupils at Saari primary school are listening to pupils at Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium presenting themselves.

Pupils at Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium are waiting for their presentation.


Yvonne from Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium is presenting herself and our mascot. Our mascot doesn't have a  name yet.
Pupils at Marion-Dönhoff are presenting themselves.


Lara is presenting herself.

During the skype meeting at Marion-Dönhoff-Gymnasium, Nienburg.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Name our hedgehog

The eTwinning hedgehog, our project's mascot, doesn't have a name yet! Propose a name for it!


This is our German-Finnish eTwinning mascot. It was given to us by the German eTwinning society to enrich our project. 

The hedgehog took part in our first Skype meeting on 11th November 2013 and is going to appear in many photos and videos.
It is going to travel to Finland before Christmas, so that it can accompany the Finnish students during our eTwinning project as well.

The students love the hedgehog and we have started a competition to find a name for this cute cuddly toy.