Upper Secondary School
We will introduce the gymnasiale Oberstufe (upper secondary school) in the school year 2024/25, starting with Year 11 and then successively growing up to Year 13. With the decision to introduce the gymnasiale Oberstufe, we have fulfilled the wish of many students and their parents. In recent years, graduates were reluctant to leave our school and found the change of school unpleasant; most families would have liked to stay.
In the future, all students at our school will have the opportunity to study bilingually from the 1st grade until they take the Abitur in the 13th grade – depending, of course, on the required performance and motivation to enter the gymnasiale Oberstufe.
As we are a rather small school, there will be a tailored course offer with a focus on our main areas of bilingualism/languages and STEM (Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences, Technology). We are currently planning our specific course offerings in consultation with our students and parents. We will of course communicate this as soon as it has been decided.
We only accept external students with a recommendation for the Gymnasium or with the appropriate level of performance as well as work and social behavior. DaZ (German as a Second Language) and EAL (English as an Additional Language) are generally offered to all lateral entrants – however, for the gymnasiale Oberstufe it must be ensured that the language requirements for successful learning are met in both German and English according to the course selection. For the admission of external students, we will arrange appointments and trial days so that we can personally get an impression of the performance level, the work and social behavior and the language level German/English.
About the premises: Next to our school, we have constructed a new, modern building with 4 classrooms for the secondary school students, our “Second House”. We are expanding and opening up new rooms in the neighbouring building at Berliner Straße 13 and we are also converting our current Platanus Kindergarten location at Benjamin-Vogelsdorff-Str. 1 in Berlin-Pankow into a campus for upper secondary education and are looking forward to a new, modern building.
The purpose of a our school is learning together up to the degree that suits each student individually and corresponds to their performance and their own plans for the future. Students do not have to choose a new school in the middle of puberty, which experience has shown to be a time full of developmental tasks and challenges without any major changes. They do not have the pressure of a grade point average of currently less than 1.3 at the popular grammar schools or integrated secondary schools in order to get a school place. You can study – depending on your performance and competencies – until the Year 10, and then graduate with the Mittlerer Schulabschluss – MSA (middle school graduation) or after Year 13 with the Abitur (high school diploma). As a bilingual school with many international and highly mobile families, we are also looking into introducing an international qualification alongside the German Abitur.
We are a performance-oriented school that teaches in the secondary level according to the framework plan and the assessment criteria of the Berlin high schools. Through our pedagogical focus – support and challenge, differentiated instruction, team teaching and support teaching in almost all school subjects – we enable all students to achieve the best possible performance in a pleasant learning atmosphere up to the appropriate school-leaving certificate, either the Berufsbildungsreife (BBR), the Mittlerer Schulabschluss (MSA) or the Abitur.
The latest FAQs on the introduction of the gymnasiale Oberstufe can be found here.