Hello
My son (age 15, in the 9th school year) just failed his gymi exam. He did well in maths, but is first language is not german and he didnt reach the 4.0 target.
He is not motivated to stay in Switzerland in the future, so is very resistant to choices that lock him into a "non-academic" pathway that would prevent him being able to study at university in the UK.
So far, the options we have found for him are:
1) Join a year 10 school and work for the Gymi exam in parallel to the Lehr preperation
2) Repeat year 9 and then re-sit the Gymi exam (not sure this is even possible)
3) Go to a private gymnasium (recommendations near Winterthur?)
4) Study in the UK for his GCSE and A-levels and live with his grandparents
5) ???
I would greatly appreciate any advice, as he is currently quite demotivated, and we do not know enough about the swiss system to properly advise him.
Thanks
There are schools in Switzerland that teach GCSE and A-level, but fee paying obviously.
There is also at least one online school in the U.K. - so he could attend via zoom. https://kingsinterhigh.co.uk/
Another option is to look at the various Mittelschule - Fachmittelschule (FMS - streams for teaching, information/communication, and other stuff which can lead to Bachelor studies at the Fachhochschulen later), Informatikmittelschule (IMS - similar, but for IT), or Handelsmittelschule (HMS - for an academic entry into sales/shop/marketing careers).
There is info on these options at the Zentrale Aufnahmeprügung site (in German, but google should be able to translate it well enough) in Canton Zurich.
The entry exams for the Mittelschulen (middle schools) are not as hard as the Gymi exams - literally half of each exam is the same, the other half easier.
I know one boy (man now) who took the IMS test several times, and managed to sneak in at the oldest possible age (after doing 10th school year, and a one-year practicum in an unrelated field).
You could also look further afield for Gymi options in other cantons - for example, one child I know (well, he's an adult now) applied for a Gymi boarding school in Appenzell - no exam, it was a one-week trial before the school year changed and when both school and parents agreed, he was in for the new school year. Other cantons might also have options like this ... without the savage Zurich entry exams.
One note on the middle schools - most of them are also running Gymnasium programmes, so there will be crossover classes in which Gymi and middle school students are learning together (eg, a robotics elective class my daughter took while studying in the FMS at Kantonschule Zürich Nord was mostly Gymi students). You'll also be pleased to note that after completing her studies at the FMS she is now in the second year of her Bachelor of Science (Information Science) - so uni studies are possible without Gymi. (The middle schools are not the only alternate paths (if that's your son's goal), so just keep looking until you find what's right for him).
Thank you both for the feedback.
We are still investigating....hopefully we find a satisfactory outcome
Should have been motivated to study harder then. Yes, you don't always get your choices but you have to learn to deal with what's on offer.
However, nothing locks anyone into anything. It just takes a bit longer. One of my children dropped out after 2 years at Gym and got an apprenticeship. After three years, she did a BM; and now is just about to graduate with a degree in Engineering and starts her Praktikant in September, age 25.
The other dropped out of FMS, did an OU degree, and will graduate with an BEd this summer - and starts working as a teacher in August. Age 27.
Oh, and another kid I know did an apprenticeship in Finance and is now a social worker.
Another option, UK or perhaps Irish boarding school.