school daze

My little darlings jumped out of bed this morning at the crack of dawn and took off for school again - Boy12 on the bus to a neighbouring town where he attends the Gymnasium, a secondary school for students intending to go on to university, Boy9 on foot to our local elementary school. This will be his last year there - next year he'll most likely attend his brother's school for grade 5 if his marks are good enough.

Summer holidays are staggered in Germany so that not all states are on vacation at the same time. I can't imagine how large the already horrendous traffic jams would be if the whole country headed north to Denmark or south to Spain all at once. Students in Bavaria are still on holiday until September, for example, while those in Berlin have been back at school since August 6. We had our holidays quite late this year and next year will be the same.

Every child in Germany must be registered at and start attending an elementary school between the ages of 6 and 7. There are very few exceptions and homeschooling is illegal.

The Erstklässler, or first-graders, get special treatment. In Lower Saxony where we live, the little ones are eingeschult (literally "schooled-in") with a special ceremony on a Saturday, a couple of days later than the bigger kids.

The Einschulung begins with family and friends attending a church service (optional, but when people tell me that there is a separation of church and state in Germany, I just smile quietly to myself) where each child receives a small cross to hang around his or her neck and a blessing from the pastor.

After that it's off to the elementary school to meet the teachers and check out the classrooms for an hour or so. Usually the older grades will put on a little musical show to welcome their new schoolmates.

It's typical for German (and Austrian, and maybe Swiss?) first-graders to receive a Schultüte or Zuckertüte on the first day of school. The Schultüte is a large, brightly decorated cardboard cone filled with sweets, school supplies and small gifts to make starting school a little easier. They can be bought ready made, but many parents like to create their own according to their child's taste. Sports or princess themes are very popular. Some of the cones end up being almost as big as the children themselves!

The first Schultüten date back to about 1810, children in Saxony and Thüringen being the first lucky recipients. The custom later spread to Jena, Dresden and Leipzig in the late 1800's, and finally to all of Germany. It used to be customary for the godparents to give their godchild a Schultüte, but nowadays it is usually a gift given by the child's parents or grandparents.