There are a lot of different aspects you have left out…
For a start where to you expect you son to complete their education up to. say 18? Switzerland or somewhere else…
Another aspect is what if your son does not have the ability and the commitment to go to Gymnasium? I’m saying that to be cruel or anything like that, it’s just a fact of life. What happens then?
And as you point out there is the social aspect - integration and building up long term friendships with people around them.
If the intention is long term/permanent residence in Switzerland, the for me it would be hands down local schools.
There are international schools for older kids. Recently I’ve spoken with a mother, whose daughter failed an exam and went to the international school for 2 years (grade 7-8) before entering Kurzgymi. She wasn’t happy with an atmosphere there. Many kids have been vaping already at that age.
You know that the only source of Swiss German at public school are the kids, right? The teacher can briefly switch to SG, when the kids misbehave, just to give them a brief lecture, but no subject is taught in SG.
In my experience, there’s only so much learning a child, especially a boy, can absorb in a day. Making the school day longer doesn’t necessarily equate to more learning.
Secondly, all school teach in Hochdeutsch.
You could teach your child English at home, perhaps supplemented with private lessons.
I like the idea of life-long learning. I think it’s important for a child to be happy at school and not to be turned off learning because he/she hates the school or the teacher/s.
You know your child best and you what kind of environment your child needs to thrive.
We’re sort of nearing the end of the whole school experience now but, with the benefit of hindsight I would have perhaps done private school from high school onwards. Primary school (in our experience) was pretty good from a learning perspective as well as social, sport, free time, etc. The shorter days were taken care of by a hort, which was well run and the kids seem to enjoy it.
High school experience is a bit mixed. Some good teachers but one or two that are a bit old fashioned plus they hired a British English native speaker that has appalling grammar skills, and she’s supposed to put kids through the Cambridge English tests. [Nails digging into palms]
I would save your money for primary school (or splash a bit of it on Hort) then take stock as you near secondary, and decide from there.
So the plan is to send him to a public Gymnasium later on? I would rather consider doing it the other way around: public now, with option of private school at high school stage towards Matura.
Yes, but at the international school there are no Swiss kids at all and only one in his class speaks German.
Yes, this was something I considered, but wasn’t sure how easy it is to find tutors and then do all the coordination and shuffling him between school and other places he’d need to go.
Anyway, as way of background, my son did 3 years of KG, he was the youngest and so probably went to KG a bit too early for him, but now he caught up.
On the other hand, his sister is 2 years younger and was too young to go to KG so we sent her to the private school. Now obviously there are differences between kids and boys and girls, but in 1 year, she managed to overtake him in writing and will likely do the same in reading soon.
This is partly down to the longer teaching day and more 1:1 attention from the teacher.
The original plan was that they’d both go to the public schools this summer and I’d save some money and a lot of headaches shuffling them from places that are quite far apart.
But now I consider whether to put them both into the private school to benefit from the closer teaching.
Both kids are fluent in Swiss German and English. The main thing I worry about is the lack of friends if they go this route (none of the kids going live close to us or are interested in play dates) whereas my son currently goes and plays with friends at his current KG.
The kids don’t learn to read or write in public KG, so for a kid who learns it it’s very easy to overtake the kid who doesn’t, even if the latter is older. The kid is expected to learn social skills, to get used to the schedule and to concentrate on a certain task for some time.
The kids are learning to read and write only at school. And in the first semester they even don’t learn to read the letters, but they use the pictures of the lips in different positions (I’m not joking). And they only start learning the letters after a few months. And we are taking about 6-7 yo kids. Very strange.
If both parents work it might be better that the kids stay at school for the whole day and have some interesting activities there than having to go to Hort for lunch, then back to school, then to the Hort again. I know many kids (including two of mine), who truly hate Hort. The quality of food is low and it can be rather boring there.
In that case I’d definitely go with the local schools. In Switzerland many relationships, hobbies etc… are built up in schools and having a good command of the local languages etc… is important.
And I would not see the financial benefit of spending a whole lot of cash on a private school in that case either. Better to spend it on grinds in language skills, weak subjects of the Gymi exam etc…
My daughter has many kids from the international schools in her class in Gymi. Gymnasiums are not just normal public schools (you have to pay for all the learning material, for the school trips, for the obligatory camp in the 2nd year etc). Many kids are sent to the international schools and enter Gymi afterwards.
A child is going to learn language better during their primary years. They are going to be more focused on academics at secondary school.
So, I’d put him in local school at primary, to pick up German and Swiss German easily. (Helpful for apprenticeship possibilities etc later). Then if you want improved academics, move to private aged 10/11.
But at local school, he’ll learn only German, whereas in the international school, he’d learn English and German. So doesn’t that favour international school from the language standpoint?