I'm moving with a 9 year old boy, he wants to go to public school and learn German, he doesn't speak currently neither German nor English.
I'm trying to find a place to live and here are my considerations. I did my job and research but wanted to get recent information from someone who went through it recently.
Winkel - small village, good for family live, but I'm afraid that school in such small village can provide enough support for foreign kid.
Basserdorf, Oerlikon, Rumlang - Close to my job, but I couldn't find any specific information about the schools. The schools looks huge on pictures, not sure if this will be good place for integration. Basically no clue what I can expect.
Fallanden - I have read on this forum that place i great for expats and schools are well prepared. Unfortunately it looks on google like I could commute only by car to work, which is not my thing. I wanted to use my bike daily, but I could sacrifice this if the place is really worth it.
All those schools are state schools and do have the same obligations - and get the money for it - for teaching German as a second language. "Foreign" kids are the norm around here. In my class, more than half of the children speak German as a second or even third language.
Taking wild guesses - big buildings being bad schools for your little one, for example - is never a good point to start an evaluation... Upon arrival, your child will be sent to the school who is closest to where you live. You can't choose the school.
You can also send your kid to a private day school, but expect to pay up to 20'000 to 30'000.- tuition a year.
You do not state where you come from (Eastern Europe?) but here, kids entering school with no German ist our daily bread - I'm a teacher.
Take your time and read all the threads concerning schooling one EF. It will keep you occupied for the weekend.
Schools in small villages may not have an integration class but often have a more individualized approach. This may actually work out just as well. Our kids came to a small village school and ended up having semi private German lessons.
Schools in small villages may not have an integration class but often have a more individualized approach. This may actually work out just as well. Our kids came to a small village school and ended up having semi private German lessons. If you can, call the principals and visit the schools.
Integration classes are not the norm in the Zurich area because they are believed to be counterproductive - because they have no native speakers from which the Primary school children can learn. It is sometimes different for older pupils.
Here, my German (DaZ) teacher comes into class on two mornings and teaches the children wo need her separately and sometimes immersed - same at other grades. The rest of the time, they soak up Swiss German and High German during the normal classes.
Thank you for your valuable comments. It looks, I wrongly assumed that village school will not be a good choice due to lack of integration class. Actually small school might be better option and will be easier for him to integrate with other kids and integration class shouldn't be driving my choice.
If I came new to Zurich looking for good schools I would use the tax rate as an indicator. The lower the rate, the better the schools. Not a perfect indicator but a pretty good one.
So Winkel would be a quite good location, low taxes but costlier housing. This combination is very common. The school there is quite good. And it has its own indoor pool.To be honest: Opfikon has that, too. To be even more honest: Both are great for plane spotting.
Let's take a different approach. In which environment will your kid learn faster/better (Swiss) German? In a school where 80% of the kids parents are Swiss, or where 10% are?
Tillia, if you can't understand humor, just don't answer.
Planes take off, too...but not thaaat close and when I was teaching music lessons at school (the one with the indoor pool) in Opfikon, the planes flew right over that house, attempting to land. You could scratch their bellies. Bye, bye, music.
You came up with the idea about Steuerfuss. I do not really agree, you can find bad and good schools in any environment. I should know. One of the baddest schools I ever worked was one at Zürichberg who - arguably so - has one of the best Gymi-Quota in ZH.
This was not because the school was good, but because the parents could not live with the idea that there was a life outside of Gymi. Gymivorbeitung was paid by parents.Those parents were not happy with the school. But did not really tell things to the right places. So everything stayed as it was.
I work at an other school right now, parents are lower to middle income, some refugees, lots with foreign backgrounds - but they tell me straight away if they have a problem or if they like it and we sit down and talk it over. I really like that. It is one of the signs for a good school climate.
Lower Tax rate means that more (very) rich people will move into the commune - that makes the commune rich. Housing is proportionately more expensive than in higher rate communes, where housing is proportionately more affordable.
Actually Opfikon is a bad example for tax rate and school quality correlation: it has quite a low "Steuerfuss" of 99, compared to Zurich (119) and Winterthur (122) and bad schools. The tax rate has to with its location close to the airport and industrial and trading sections of Zurich. To me Opfikon has the worst urban planning in Zurich, it's lacks any character and would look elsewhere for schools, the suggestions so far were quiet good.
You are right about this one, I always got disorientated in this hodgepodge of ugly buildings.
I wouldn't say the schools are bad, but you'll find many kids with relatively uneducated parents there, many of them barely speaking German. It is not always easy for teachers to teach such classes.
What I liked about the kids there: They really loved to come to school, because it was so boring at home :-(
@marischi: so if you would come new to Zurich and working in Opfikon, you would definitely not live in Optikon. What would you choose then :-) Any other hints than Winkel or Fallanden? Looking at tax rate I nailed down those two from the wider list.
Winkel is small but really cute - also if you love the outdoors - good school. You can also try Bülach and it's surroundings or Oerlikon (Leutschenbach). Zürich has its nice places. Höngg is nice, but not so good public transportation, but still well enough.
But still - you have to like it. Just live somewhere because of tax is not a good idea :-)
I agree with you. How can I find out which towns have a smaller number of non german speakers? I'm afraid that my daughter will forget the german she learned in preprimary (now she's learning in english and spanish and is in 3rd grade, refuses to speak german). Also I think she will learn better if she "has" to speak in swiss-german, but of course with adecquate language support.