Sprachheilschule?

We learned not to question “recommendations” or we would be pointed at when we really need help.
If you read the next paragraph, you would have noticed why he goes to school logo (in addition to daz)

Logopädie actually teaches german words (with pictures etc) - my daughter booklet contains massive amount of words and practices. The Logopäde does massive job, much more than simple pronunciation. I give them credit to be honest

OK, but why does every single foreign kid in your area need it? The speech therapist must be really overloaded!

2 Likes

This is quite stressful, sorry you are going through that.

We have been in a similar situation in Zurich many years ago, albeit for different reasons.

Out of curiosity… Is the school complaining about high german or Swiss German? Given at KG Swiss German is spoken I find this even more odd.

Please do not be afraid to push back and say you don’t agree with the recommendation.

My experience is that indeed at times the schools would rather push out the problem than solve it with you.

The school year barely started, it’s too early to say whether in a year’s time she will be good enough in German - kids at that age learn super fast! And there is always the option to stay behind in KG for one extra year if need be.

Be firm with the school that you expect them to provide Daz and Logopaedie and that you want to revisit this in January. That’s it. Don’t let the pressure of 'then you will loose the spot etc". In the end school here is responsible to ensure learning is happening for all children.

In the meantime organise extra lessons or perhaps even just a 15 year old babysitter (ensure she can speak high German well and will only do that - not Swiss German).

Stay strong!

2 Likes

Hi @Buzzer

Mind to share what has happened and why they picked your kid for this sprachehil? Just to rationalise the reasons they pick behind close doors.

Logopad makes massive work and also overloaded especially that the gemeinde overgrew with kids. Mine has an articulation issue when it comes to german, she speaks slightly like a robot when she tries to express long sentences or stories… it feels funny, but totally understandable, however they need her to speak it in a flowing manner and we dont know how this can happen via teaching; if they give us head points, we can work on it… they only give her words (as if its a dictionary)… she has massive word dictionary in her head, but we are trying to get her to put them in sentences (complex and beyond just simple sentences) which we dont know if that should be the age for this or not (a native assume because their kids speak the language from age of 2, that our kid should too!)

Daz teacher too, shes good but she says she cant sit all day with specific kid, maybe an hour or 2 twice a week due to other classes in.

Teacher and daz speak german, others swiss german but luckily kid differentiates and sometimes mixes both for the sake of easiness.

Extra lessons is a good idea but she still goes to english lessons (to learn writing etc) and she doesnt like it too much because it lacks the activities she has in KG. Not sure if she loves to be under spotlight especially when shes not in the mood to study.

Baby set is good idea - will seek someone in area. Any platform or place to look for?

How your kid is doing by now? How s/he made a leap? Our problem is the stress the school system put on us (and maybe on our kid)

Ps when I talked to the logo, she politely said that she does her best but she is not sure if my kid understands her cos she doesnt react to her most of the time and sometimes she just ignore her, but then when she visits the school, she finds her playing and talking to kids! I was shy to tell her that maybe the kid doesnt like her or aftaid of her or afriad of coming by a taxi alone to her at 7 in the morning? Shes too young to he put under spot light early in the morning in a “strange” environment

To me it seems a bit strange they recommended this school to a child who is still in the KG because at this age they can catch up with the locals very fast. (unless there are other issues, and you said it’s not the case)

I have a friend who has “fought” for her child to be allowed to stay in the KG for one more year because he was a premature child and she felt he would do better later on in school if allowed to start first grade at 7 not 6. Has asked the GP to write a recommendation, no results. The argument was “well, he can repeat first grade if it doesn’t work”. (like, really?)
Long story short - she didn’t quit. In the end they allowed him to stay one more year in KG.

It is funny because when my older one was in KG, one child was allowed to stay in KG till almost 8! just because parents wanted him to be with his younger sister and have them go and come together to and from school…
So for some it’s possible no questions asked about the child’s development etc., but for others…not. Sometimes these recommendations seem kind of “random” to me.

Well, the Swiss-German “ch” indeed is a challenge :laughing:

I agree, it seems a misuse of this branche or there’s too many of them and they don’t admit that half the clientele should not be with them.

DOES the child not like her or is she afraid of her? Do you talk to your daughter to find out, what exactly moves her, worries her?

Why is this child sent there all alone in a taxi a 7am?

1 Like

I think there’s a lot more to this situation than we’ve been told here.

3 Likes

@greenmount I think my kid is very mature for school and so says the kg. They only have a “concern” about her german language level that might not be sufficient for school and it might affect her in primary school.

When I said lets sleep on the matter until next summer then we decide, they said due to budget and waiting lists etc, we must apply shortly and then we have the option (bait?) to cancel if things go well during the year. While I can play this stupid game and then chicken out last min, I feel this might backfire in a way or another - the swiss system masters punishing “players”. We want the best for our kid, but we need a second opinion and other ppl real experience (the ones go to that heil refuse to share their info or discuss with us, which is understandable; they want to protect their privacy maybe). Hence im here looking for someone with similar experience and/or an actual experience with the sprachheil and how it ended up (especially on the negative aspects from personality and change point view). Am afraid she will always be tagged as special (not a stigma but rather more admin work to do!) later in life and also more importantly that she might catch strange traits or fall behind because her colleagues dont speak or actually have underlying problems that are the main cause for language deficiency. For example: she hears sudden shouts or stutters or or… or she feels the lack of need to speak because her colleagues dont speak or pronounce things wrong because her colleagues pronounce wrong etc

@TinyK no not really, but seen many of them and I even asked their parents why they go there while they speak really good, and they didnt have an idea either but they are happy that someone is taking care of them (ie we trust science)

@curley She doesnt tell why, and we assume like other kids who cant justify. But we know that she doesnt like to be put in “academic” style setup (ie shes more interested in activities than actual having to be alone with someone telling them words). I cant tell precisely and when I ask her, she says she likes frau x. When we told the logopädie without sounding like blaming her, she said that she does her absolute best to make her feel welcome and sadly there is no other logopädie in the school to assign to her in case this changes. Only recently my daughter started to become interactive with her (was reported to me by the logpadie that shes so excited to see my daughter being very attentive to the session and happy to see her).

Taxi? This is normal practice when the local school has no x or y, they just hire a taxi or bus to send the kid to that specific x or y and bring them back to kg. She is assigned such early time (out of our control).

@belgianmum, i have no reason to hide info or do conspiracy theories or stir “something to it” drama. Im, as per the original post, looking for constructive opinion of people here with experience with such thing/school. If you have any opinion directly related to school system and also sprachheil, I would be very eager to see your comment and appreciative on that matter.

I think we are dragging out of core issue here: sprachheilschule cons, pros and necessities… we fail to find someone who had experience with them so we want to have a 3rd eye or second opinion to be more confident in our rejection (or acceptance).

I suppose that many of us on this forum have, or have had, children who did not speak the language used in the local school at home. Most children I knew seem to have picked up the new language fairly quickly in Kindergarten without extra intervention. In the first year at school some may have been offered DAZ sessions.
This might be why you are not getting the replies you want. We simply have no experience of your situation and don’t know any one else who has either. It is, to us, very unusual.
Quite honestly, when I read through the thread, my first reaction was ‘poor child’. This is not a criticism of anyone involved but for a child of that age to be taught German by several people (possibly with slight variations in dialect/accent) in addition to ‘still going to English lessons to learn writing etc.’ sounds tough.
I’ll get into trouble for this, but I notice that you don’t write the same English as I write and I wonder if there is not another language in the background somewhere.
This might explain some of the things which ‘bother’ others on the Forum, not just me.
I’ll now go back to my rocking chair and my knitting…

3 Likes

Thanks @Longbyt
I suppose their assumption (and as you know, they might not be able to directly say it) is that they give her daz (once or twice a week for an hour and so) and also logopadie once a week and yet after a year she is still weak in german. They also add to that, that she is not great in her native language accoeding to info we gave to them a year ago when we registered her (it doesnt matter if its spanish, english or portugese; her mother tongue is NOT german and she was a late talker; something we shared with them that she talked at age of 3 and she is still not 100% mastering our language due to lack of kids in the area who speak it anyway). I think this has caused a prejudice that if she talked late, then there might be an underlying thing, especially that she is still not forming complex sentences in german in the class and making article mistakes. And to assure you, we have done all necessary medical and specialist tests, not only in ch, but also in the UK and she cleared all of them with no exception. They eventually said, maybe because i (the parent) was a late talker (and still struggle with languages in a way or another; and thats apparent in your comment that my english is not your english) - they still said it might be a genetic trait. We shared the info before registering in the KG and we feel like its being used against us. Their only justification is that if she goes to school, she might get lost due to lack of teacher attention to all kids in the class.

Im not sure if ye all are rocking on the same chair :slight_smile: as you use “we”, unless you just read online minds.

1 Like

Does your daughter also go to a mittagstisch (lunch club) or after school hort (care)? This is a much less formal setting where the kids can mingle and play, which would expose your daughter to lots of Swiss German in a relaxed setting.

You could also find clubs that interest your daughter (ballet, sports, crafting, etc.). It sounds like she’s in 2nd KG (?) and in my experience kids at that age change so much within a school year.

2 Likes

She goes to hort (we registered her last week) and we pur much hope on that. And yea she only just started KG 2.

Am on a mission right now to prove the KG is wrong (or I hope I can) so I’ll actively seek activities for her on the hope that we are 100% that she is on paar german-wise. Its not that we want to live in denial, we are just not sure if the sprachehil thing going to help without causing other damages when they merge her to regelschule

That’s the wrong incentive.
But the right path - as long as you don’t put your kid under too much pressure with it. Children feel whether they are supported or pushed because the enviroment (parents) want them to be different than they are.

1 Like

@curley mind to share what signs we should mind to recognise the kid is stressed? Mine seems always happy to do things (even if too manu) so long as they are not very early in the morning although she wakes up at 6:30

Our experience from twenty years ago and in Glarus. We came with two english speaking kids aged four and six. Neither of us was working, so the kids were able to spend to the summer at the local outdoor swimming pool - a great place to socialise and to learn Swiss-German. Come school time, we resisted the authorities wishes to send the eldest to special language classes and enrolled her in the local school. The kids soon made up for their lacking language skills, it was all the other issues with young children that kept us occupied.

3 Likes

Totally valid concerns if you ask me. But I don’t know about “stigma” - in Switzerland almost every other schoolchild attends some form of therapy. I don’t think it would affect her future, if this is what you’re afraid of. Like you, I would be more concerned if it’s going to really help and not make things worse.

I would give these schools the benefit of the doubt. Everything you think it could happen, they must have thought of it too. For that, it is regrettable that parents of kids who’re actually studying there don’t share their experiences. They make it look like it’s a “stigma”. The school too should be a bit more transparent.
Frankly - no, we didn’t have this issue with any of our children, but that’s because they went to the creche/krippe, play groups etc even before KG. We don’t really speak German at home.
My advice is to expose her to various groups of kids/activities that actually speak German/Swiss-German and not English. You might have noticed, depending on where you live, that they resort to English during breaks etc.

1 Like

You did nothing wrong, you shared some info you thought it could help them have a clearer picture of the situation.

I can only imagine you’re blaming yourself now for the current situation (as in “why did you tell them all those things, why did we influence the way they see our child?” you know, this kind of things, for the sake of clarity as English is obviously not my maternal language and I really hope I don’t sound offensive), but don’t. It’s part of a parent’s life to live with some form of “guilt” at one moment or another, but it’s not always up to you and I think their assessment was done in good faith. I believe that people are good.
They still might be wrong though!!! :slight_smile:
When she’ll grow up and these issues will be well behind you, you might even laugh at this “turmoil”. Be kind to yourself and all the best to your daughter.

1 Like

My observations are completely different, unless you mean foreign kids coming from the countries with “helicopter” parenting.

1 Like

Now that you mentioned the origins I think foreign kids are more often in these therapy “lessons” than the Swiss kids. But parents have nothing to do with it, it’s the teachers who recommend them. In fact foreign parents have many preconceptions about these lessons.

What is “helicopter parenting” in your opinion, btw? Because people seem to have a shifting opinion about what that means.
E.g. on EF if the parent in case wrote in perfect native English, their concerns were taken VERY seriously, met with compassion etc. if it was someone else, unless they were totally apologetic, their concerns were dismissed quite rudely.

The Swiss call some of the parents “hens”; they don’t use this term btw. They might be more tolerant than the folks online actually.

1 Like

Actually the term is “Glucke”. That is a hen but during time of sitting on eggs only.
And yes, Helikopter-Eltern is a term known here.