We have finally found a kita… and despite all the “why are you even asking questions, just be grateful of getting a place” and “all Swiss Kitas/education are amazing” conversations; we found some drastic differences between them… so here’s a small summary of some of the things that (to us) stuck out a bit.
Kita 1:
nice and central, kids are very multicultural
high German emphasized, but also Swiss German is used
no kita playground; they share a small playground with the rest of the building
no real “outdoor” activities - they do their playground 1-2 times a day, but don’t goto a forest, river or lake regularly
during the visit, one of the classes had all the kids around an ipad watching some cartoon
Kita 2:
very close to forest, brings kids to the forest every day (come rain or shine)
only and exclusively Swiss German (borderline offended we would ask if they are bilingual). Went on a rant about how kids need to integrate
strong opinions against teaching kids under kindergarten age basic literacy skills. Insisted that montesori is not good for children, and that they need to play and not learn
Kita 3:
small and “personal”
biliangual (German/English)
VERY disorganized
visit lasted 10 minutes, where they showed the rooms and read through a script
no kitchen - food is ordered in every day
snacks are mainly pre-packaged (e.g. the blended fruit puree or rice crackers)
Kita 4:
Very similar to kita 3, but only serves meat once a week. The lady openly told us “oh yes, a lot of parents complain about this - but the owners are Swiss and insist on reducing how much meat the kids eat”
Kita 5:
associated to an American group I think - whereby they gave us a large PDF with rules and regulations right away (including emergency procedures, etc). Everything documented.
I’m sure there’s more that I don’t remember… but wow the differences were impressive to see. Also how they respond to international families (e.g. some were very open to a future outside of Switzerland, while others insisted on “integrating”), and technology (ranging from none, to “oh we put everything on facebook every day”, to “we have a dedicated app designed specifically for childcares where you can see everything from meals, to activities to scans of what the child does”).
Is one right and the other wrong? Probably not. But I do want something that aligns to our family (i.e. no clue where we will bein 5 years time, we might be in South America, as we might be in Singapore… so a focus on international integration and international education vs provincial is important to us).
The question is: Where actually is that free place you finally found?
I’d go for Kita4.
What ever VERY disorganized means, the kids will get the tough drill/sitting still soon enough. Kita is before Kindergarten, right? They will be learning the “organized” there, patiently I hope.
It does not harm a kid to have meat only one lunch a week (which is within 5 days). It does help if they learn to like veggies, easier within the group.
Not to mention you can feed your kid every evening with meat, if you think that is important.
Me too. But the OP writes that a focus on international integration and international education is important, which mean that they have different priorities.
KiTas 4 and 5 seem OK. Meat once a week is typical for local Horts. As long as the kid eats meat for dinner, I don’t see a problem.
As Kita is even before Kindergarten I would agree on that. Even for Kindergarten I still would.
At the same time, integrating here in Switzerland means living with all kinds of nationalities. Which is great - me going to an international school was a special treat back then. So I would send my kid to a Swiss Kita, knowing it will meet/deal with all kinds of kids yet be taught in Swiss-German and German. edit: sorry, or French, or Italian depending on the region.
This on the other hand sounds very unhealthy to me:
Our créche insisted they’re not allowed to send us pictures of our son, even though the teacher showed the pictures on her own phone, and told us they later on print the pictures on a board and delete them from the device. Very weird.
I don’t think a kitchen in the place matters, ours also gets deliveries every morning from a reputable supplier and most days there’s meat or fish for lunch.
I don’t even think it’s necessary for the kid to have meat for dinner everyday either. As long as they have a healthy diet with a good source of protein every day they’ll be fine.
Very strange indeed as they rather are not allowed to take pictures of the children and definitely not to print them on some board or anything without asking the parents.
Denying the pictures to the parents is then a joke.
We did consent to taking the pictures in the registration forms, we’re just puzzled that they won’t send them to us. It’s current, I will see how that board turns up..
If that’s the case why print them and post them on a board?
Do they blackout the children whose parents didn’t give permission? That’s just as easy to do on a digital photo.
The move is a guarantee - not an IF. Our family has people in 5+ countries, and even now, we don’t spend all our time in CH. I’m tax resident in 3x countries given how much time we spend “abroad”.
This is the weird thing. Despite all the comments online (oh wow reddit is an acid pit), not a single kita was “full”. One said that they were full on a specific day, but could still do 4 days per week. One said “if in future you want more than 2d/week, we cannot guarantee availability” then… (which also is ok). ALL the others had no issues with availability.
We speak 3-4 languages at home, including (not me particularly) German. I don’t want the child to be used to an environment with a single language. The expectation is that they will be attending (later on of course) more than one school - similar to how I was brought up. That precludes non-international schools, as I don’t think a Swiss public school would understand that the family moves to the UK or Singapore or somewhere else for a few months, and that’s normal for us.
So the multilingual aspect for us is really fundamental. Ensuring that the child can integrate into a Swiss kindergarten, as much as one in the UK similarly so.
There were difficulties for many years, culminating in a major crunch leading up to covid, but I noticed since then that prices have increased, subsidies have decreased and as a result parents have been pulling kids out which leads to the need to increase prices further and this feedback loop has shifted our local Kitas from a situation where parents were fighting for the few spaces that came up, to one where the Kitas are struggling financially due to the under-occupancy.
With work from home, it seems many are taking turns to host the kids e.g. 3 families, each take one day to look after the kids.
We reduced youngest to 3 days instead of 5. We were going to take out the eldest completely, but ended up sending him to private school where they anyway have a full day programme.
We’re looking at 2-3 days for now, precisely for that reason. We work from home quite a lot, (ability to be fully wfh), but the kita is mainly a “socialisation with other kids” thing.
Didn’t think of speaking to other parents with regards to watching kids… that’s actually a good idea…
