None of my students are expats, the Swiss parents push their children to do well just as much as expat students.
Maybe we are in a bubble, but talking to other local Swiss parents, they also feel that for kids to do well, you need to supplement what happens with school with something outside of school as it isn’t sufficient.
This wasn’t even about gymi, but just getting into the higher P stream at secondary and streaming before that in primary.
This is the one thing (so far) that puzzles me about the Swiss system. Qualifying for Gymi seems impossible without extracurricular lessons. There is even content you need to know for the admission test that is not taught in regular class.
I’ve heard from a number sources that the brutal admission criteria is special to Zurich and not as bad in the rest of the country.
I am in Schwyz, and while I wouldn’t describe it as brutal it is still tough and everyone takes extra classes to make the jump. And a good chunk still comes back after one semester in Gymi.
Neuchâtel doesn’t have the brutal admission criteria, it’s staying there which is the the difficult part.
They require good marks across the board and most students have a weakness somewhere and need extra support to keep their grades up in those areas.
I think one issue is that there is a lot of pressure from parents of kids who want to send their kids to a ‘higher’ group even though they are not up to scratch.
As a teacher, I imagine it is easier not to argue with them but let them go through and fail and drop out.
Anyway, I’ve been discussing with my partner for days and we’ve been flip-flopping on the decision.
Ultimately, it boils down to: do we prioritize academic or social aspects?
Yesterday, we are all set on putting him into private school, tonight we thought more about the social progress he has made and what a shame it would be to lose some of his connections and friendships and so flip-flopped the other way.
I think we will talk more to see who exactly will be in his class and see the teacher first before deciding (it will be a new teacher that we don’t personally know).
With the slight issue that this has exactly nothing to do with school quality.
As usual you try to shift the goalposts. Nil novi sub sole.
Well you mentioned exotic expat demands. I think the point was that it is not just expats.
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All three of our kids have been or are currently in Gymnasium following a bilingual German-French program. None of them had any extra tutoring outside of school. We live in the canton of Bern, where there’s no Langzeitgymnasium option. Here, Gymnasium lasts four years in German or three years in French.
They tutor younger kids whose parents want to help them get the grades needed for Gymnasium. Some of the students are Swiss, others have foreign backgrounds. Our town has a pretty high immigrant population, so it’s not surprising that the kids they work with come from all sorts of different backgrounds.
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Where did I say that it did?
I was responding to Shirley’s post not yours although your assertion that tutoring is an expat thing is totally wrong which I also responded to.
That’s where an admission test comes into play, with obviously good reason. However, the grading process should be anonymised. Research on italian data (the entire nation has the same centralised tests) demonstrates that there are clear differences how girls and boys are graded.
That’s why gymi admission tests and the matura itself need to be centralised and anonymised. Also to reduce teachers’ workload.
May I ask why your child would receive higher quality education in private school than in public school? How is this measured?
I currently have a kid in each and the difference is night and day.
The public school is not bad in any way. But firstly, they have only a half day compared to full day at private school, so the amount of time they even have to teach is already cut in half.
On top of that, there are 5 times more kids per teacher in the public school, so the amount of personal attention is much reduced.
Then there is a difference in focus: private school has mornings mainly dedicated to core subjects like maths, english and german. And in the afternoon science and projects and music.
In the public school, they focus more on motor skills, and learn through play. My son was interested in letters and learned some letters at home and was proud to show his teacher who poured cold water on this and told him that he should better focus on learning to cut well with scissors instead.
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I think a test could make sense and be more objective. Currently the teacher decides and if you object you can have your kid take the test. However, I’m told the test is very difficult and even kids that are selected to go to the higher class are likely to fail the test (but they don’t have to take the test if recommended by the teacher).
That sounds like a huge difference indeed. Especially the much lower student to teacher ratio at the private school.
You currently have a kid in each, but you’re asking us for reasons??
Why have you chosen different paths for the other 2 kids?
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Due to circumstances, we had no choice.
But now we do have a choice so need to decide whether to pull one out of the private system for better integration or put the other one into private for better academics.
The choice is not so drastically binary. While many private schools are ‘international’ catering mainly for english-speaking transient families, there are some private schools who mainly aim at the locals : offering maturity in the local language (not IB etc) where one can find families who are local and well-integrated. Just the public school curiculum with a private school timetables, private school lunches, afterschool activities and focus on academics.
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