My son will go to primary school shortly.
Anyone can advice which school in Basel city (especially Klein Basel) is the best? I tried to find any school ranking but there is no available on the market and education department don't want to provide the info as well.
Thank and best regards,
Raf
Or, were you thinking of moving?
In my experience, the actual teacher your son will have is more important than the school and you won't get a a choice there.
So I suggest you choose where to live based on other criteria.
Kids learn languages incredibly quickly and a by-product of their interaction with the neighbors' kids and their classmates is that they don't only learn to speak, but also how to deal with conflicts in German with hopefully as little parental intrusion as possible.
And it will stay that High German for quite a few more years. Some teachers take their linguistic duty more seriously than others. Don't count on the school administration to do anything about it if the High German is too weak by your standards.
It all ends well, considering one could expect worse, but the issue is taboo in the public debate. The level in High German is not bad at all overall but varies a lot from student to student due precisely to the different interpretation of what good High German is during their whole school carreer and in each family.
As a UK teacher what I noticed was the following.
1) There are no centralized or even school wide policies, missions statements or pedagogical ethos - seem to be no standards control within schools or across schools
2) Instead it all depends upon the teacher in the classroom
I have experienced some good teachers and some not so good.
In the secondary schools in Switzerland students take the Matura.
What is something new for people from the UK is that there are no centralized bodies of academic assessment.
In practice this means that Swiss teachers write their own tests for the Matura.
I have a little bit of background in assessment and this does surprise me as writing a reliable and valid assessment is no easy task.
In terms of English teaching - what I have seen is that although some teachers are open and do a good job - they are missing critical background on really testing a language. So, for example, they omit the importance of context, co-text and the whole area of discourse analysis in English teaching and instead focus more on translation and very rule driven grammar points (which interestingly often end up defying rules)
Some teachers are really open in the public system and others are closed and defensive and resent any kind of dialogue about what they are teaching either from students or parents.
As someone else said - it is a lotto. Luck of the draw! And down to the individual teacher
2) It always all depends on the teacher in any system. The controle of individual teachers might be less here than in other countries, but nowhere is a system not dependent on the individual teacher's way of dealing with guidelines.
3) Relax, it's not dangerous to trust teachers even if like all human beings, things happen. The level of education is high, with or without whatever you are missing.
I was not being critical of the Swiss public system just sharing my own experience as both a parent and a teacher.
With regard to the teaching of English what I'm talking about is not at all jargon.
Here is a non jargon clear example:
My son's English teacher has told him that it is wrong to say "Would you like any cheese"?
This is because the teacher is teaching "some" and "any" in a tight, rule based approach based on whether a noun is countable or uncountable.
That is OK as a start for beginners.....
But - it ignores the fact that native and advanced speakers break these "initial rules of learning" all of the time - when what they say becomes more context dependent.
If a teacher is teaching at Matura level and writing tests- then those test had better recognize the wide ranging uses of language beyond the initial rule based ones. The tests had better recognize that the word "pushchair" and "stroller" are both correct. But unfortunately I've seen the opposite happen.
Writing good tests is really not an easy thing to do which is why Cambridge, AQA, Pearson, etc examination boards have full time academics writing tests and exams which are valid and reliable.
If a child is dropping points because the teacher is ill informed - then sorry, that has to be said - and yes it does happen here because tests are written by the teachers.
I have heard such things from so many English speaking parents. One lady (who is from the North of England) was told that her son dropped points in English because the teacher told him he could not pronounce a word properly. There was nothing wrong with the way he pronounced the word apart from it was with a Northern UK vowel sound rather than a Southern UK vowel sound.
As I said - there are some great teachers here, I've worked with them and I'd be delighted to have my child in their class - but there are some pretty awful things I've heard too. And of course, there are poor teachers everywhere.....
One of the main points of surprise for me was, is and continues to be the fact that teachers can just write their own Matura tests......How are there agreed upon academic standards across Switzerland? As a teacher and a parent with a son in the Matura track I genuinely would love to know this (in a clear way - not just "trust us"
But this has nothing to do with pedagogical or didactical issues.
How are academic standards at Matura level standardized across Switzerland - or even between cantons - or even between schools? How is the Matura controlled for reliability and validity? I realise no system is perfect. But given that teachers write their own Matura tests and these tests determine the future of students (University entrance etc) I am really interested in hearing about how these difficulties are addressed.
Nobody considers Matura in Fribourg and in Vaud as really equal. No Zürcher will ever admit that an Aargauer did a proper matura. No Berner will take the Jura matura seriously. It's endless. But that too won't be discussed publicly in the presence of foreigners.
Guess what, it's on purpose. Lesson in Swiss psychology:
Schools make a point to be Swiss people's school, foreigners have to adapt. This is why there is extra local language but no provision for other languages. If you speak English natively, good for you but that won't make you a good Swiss citizen, so it is of no interest for education. It's brutal, but it explains a lot. A lot. I was told off (by people that had no authority to do so) for not having enough Swiss authors in my courses. Same reasoning as above and you'll understand the whys and the hows. For info: my students now have to read Chessex in one of my French classes... if you know the guy, you'll understand the irony of the aßßhole's complaint. It was really funny to see her face when I thanked her for her suggestion in public.
But guess what? The goal to reach comparable education levels among the cantons will not be implmented by the simple technical mean to use the same exams for everybody all over the entire country.
I see what you're saying in your answer.....Swiss schools educate and turn out students who will be/are good Swiss citizens. This makes sense.
I've never had the opportunity to really understand the way the Swiss matura works as a national qualification - but what you say also makes sense insofar as it isn't really a national qualification as such but reflects the regional and local ways that Switzerland exists and is fairly independent in that way.
Also having been part of a Swiss family for over a decade I can see what you're saying regarding the local and regional bias between cantons.