How/when to enrol in a kindergarten in Baselland

Dear all,

My son is only 3 but I'm looking ahead to when I have to take him out of his private daycare and into mandatory kindergarten education. I've been hunting the net for information and I've not found anything I can understand. The Baselland education department site http://www.edu-bl.ch/modules.php?op=...iewlink&cid=21 (I think that's what it was) only lists 3 kindergartens for the whole kanton and that can't be right!

My first port of call should be the Gemeinde of course, but to prepare for that does anyone have any useful links they can recommend please or some personal experience they can tell me about?

I'm also wondering at what age I have to send him (he was born in November 05), and how working parents cope with kindergarten when they only run in the mornings until 11.30 (I've heard this can be the case). Do you have to rush back for lunch then drop them at a private place for the afternoon? Is this why parents opt for tinytots and international schools? (I assume they offer all-day kindergarten classes...?)

Also, about the language barrier, are induction programmes quite commonplace at most schools to help kids who have no Swiss German? Or are they run before term/outside the school at kantonal level? I've no doubt children only take about 6 months to pick it up, but I'd still like to spare my son the double trauma of starting a new school and not understanding a word the teacher says.

This whole topic fills me with dread and anxiety! I'd really appreciate any advice you can offer.

Thanks in advance

Hi there!

At a quick glance it looks to me as if the site you found was concerned with adult education anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about the number of Kindergartens on it.

There have been lots of posts on the Forum on the subject of Newbies with small children starting Kindergarten and School already, so it might be an idea to start wading through them. It is hardly likely that anyone can say exactly what will happen in YOUR commune with regards to children of another mother tongue but it will give you some idea of what to expect.

As certainly each canton and probably every commune in Switzerland seems, to a certain extent, to makes it own rules, you'd get the most accurate information in the commune in which your child will actually go to school, as you yourself, said. You can be pretty sure though that the time the child spends there will be very limited and in no way cover the whole day.

I looked up Binningen, (Googled Binningen BL), just to see what was there, and it shows the adresses of the eleven! Kindergarten plus one Heilpädagogische and one for chldren with German as their second language.

As this obviously worries you a lot, I think I'd be inclined to look up the Homepage of 'my' parish, look for the e-mail address of someone in the School/Kindergarten and simply ask how many hours a day etc. the children will be there. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know!

Happy Hunting.

Hi Oognip

No doubt someone from Baselland will come along and give you more precise info just for your canton, but here's how it worked for me in Vaud, just to give you a rough idea in the meantime.

My daughter is in 1st yr enfantine (KG in the French-speaking cantons). She goes Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri mornings 8.30-11.30am, then back Tues and Thurs afternoons 2-3.30pm. Our enfantine is part of the local school, and children with working parents can go to the lunchtime/afterschool canteen (except Weds pm, when the canteen is closed - not sure what the KGers do on Wed am, either).

Our cut-off school year date here is June 30th, so any children who are aged 4 at June 30th can go to enfantine at the end of August. So some might be 4 and a couple of months, whereas others may have actually turned 5 during July/ August by the time they start at the end of August. Different cantons have slightly different cut-offs, but it sounds like your son would be in the older half of the class, which is usually helpful for boys, who are sometimes slower developers of key skills like sitting still and concentrating!

My daughter had absolutely no French when she started, and now apparently understands most, if not all, of what's going on. Remember that the language for this age is (a) actually very limited in terms of vocab, and (b) very context-based, with lots of clues from pointing and demonstrating how to do a move in gym, etc. So it's not as daunting as adults may think.

My daughter has two teachers on a job-share; one has basic English, the other good English. They are helping her learn French, giving her sentences to model, using some of her well-known books from home to translate 'on the fly' into French for the class story (so she already knows the story/pictures); she also has a little group class once a week with a French tutor, although this is more unusual (and not really strictly necessary, as the teachers are so proactive).

In my daughter's class, she was the only non-French speaker (the others had done pre-school), but at least a third of the class has a separate home language (Spanish, Ukranian, Albanian, etc). The KGs are completely used to kids with no or shaky French (or German, in your case) and the teachers are experienced at coaxing them through the early days with lots of pointing and repetition (and usually some basic English anyway).

Perhaps there are some local language activities he could attend in the meantime - story time at the local library, a music session, something like that, that would go a long way towards tuning his ear to the sounds so it's not all so strange on Day One. Or see if you can find a local teenager to come and play once a week - most will have enough English to have very basic conversations, and could play with Lego to help him learn colours, numbers, how to ask for things, etc. Or perhaps mix-and-match his current daycare so he does a couple of days at a Swiss-German speaking nursery, or a home-based childminder.

But don't worry if these things are not available to you. Really, he'll be fine after the first few weeks, and he'll have two years before 'proper' school and anything academic. And the annoying little tykes develop faultless accents within minutes...

kodokan

http://www.baselland.ch/kindergarten-htm.273522.0.html

In Baselland, Kindergarten is voluntary. Your son can go to kindergarten for two years when he is four, or for one year when he is five years old. The school year starts in August, but ask at the municipality if there is a different cut-off date. The municipality is also responsible to appoint the kindergarten.

Dear Kodokan, Nathu and Longby,

Thanks for taking the time to write. That's given me a bit more to go on and it seems I don't have to worry for another year and a half.

I guess if anyone is under pressure to get learning, it should be me so that I'll be in a better position to communicate with the teachers, parents and the other kids when the time comes.

I will think of ways to increase his exposure to German and Swiss naturally and gradually.

Thank-you for the links and for putting my mind at rest.

Best wishes

oognip