Vorschulkind

First day of Kindergarten 2013-2014

Timmy is a Vorschulkind this year.  That means that he is preparing to enter school next year.

In the US, we call preschool.... "school."  We call high school...."school."  We call going to the University..... "school."   It's all learning, right?   In Germany, you only use the word "Schule" (school) referring to the elementary school....or ages 6 to 11.  After age 11, you are in the high school equivolent, of which there are three types.  Then, if you attend a higher education, you would say that you are "studying"...not going to school.

So, in preparation for Timmy entering REAL LIFE school next year, I looked up registration, because I knew that it is done a year in advance.   So, I found out that we will go to an open house in October and have a registration appointment in November where they will do a little assessment. Then, Timmy will need to do a special doctors exam to enter school.   Then, there will be a special parents' evening in June where we will get all the info/dates for the year.

Then, in August, they will have a training day for the new school children to teach them all about how things work at REAL school.

Oddly enough (to me, anyway) this begins with an Ecumenical worship service.  I know public school doesn't have such a huge separation of church and state like we do in the US, primarily because a lot of Kindergartens are church-run, but with public funding, etc   I'm pretty used to the "Non-denominational" thing too.  But I had never heard of an ecumenical service.  That is a general "Christian" service, from what I gather.

Seems odd to me just because there is quite a lot of cultural and religious diversity here actually.

Anyway, I plan to go, and check it out. It's interesting to me to have a religious service attached to public school starts.  I'm totally curious. :)