# Schools in and around Munich for non-German speaking children



## Turkglocal

Hi all, we will be moving to Munich from Sydney. I have 2 children (age 7 and 12) and I am bit worry for my 12 years old because both children and I speak NO German (only hubby B2 level). We have the intention of enrolling both girls public school system but.. I am worried that they will be having a hard time due to language barrier (incl. me and my 12 years old) I have no idea which suburbs/town of Munich has good public schools so we rent our place in that specific area !!!? I would like to find out

1- Any area(name please) that you recommend us to consider surrounding of Munich ( husband workplace will be in central Munich)

2- Your thoughts of the school system ( my kids only speak English and we have no intention of sending my 12 years to Gymnasium road ! She is a creative person would like to study fashion design) and I wonder pros n cons public school versus international school (so far my understanding international schools provide English and German language and putting my 12 years into a public system with zero Germans will be 'throwing her into the deep end' ) All advice and tips appreciated!


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## Tellus

Hi, don't know if you get a flat or house in or around Munich, but guess that will influence your decision.
The Greater Munich area get a very good public transport net. The Munich property market is difficult and expensive, so maybe you'll live in a suburb. It 's a matter of money.
F.I. my brother in law and family live near the Ammersee but his company is in the West of Munich.
Nobody can say this school is good or the right one for the kids. In Germany usually 2 langs like English and French or Spanish are teached. Your kids will learn German much easier if they get immersed from first day on.
No need for international school or Private Gymnasium..


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## ALKB

Turkglocal said:


> Hi all, we will be moving to Munich from Sydney. I have 2 children (age 7 and 12) and I am bit worry for my 12 years old because both children and I speak NO German (only hubby B2 level). We have the intention of enrolling both girls public school system but.. I am worried that they will be having a hard time due to language barrier (incl. me and my 12 years old) I have no idea which suburbs/town of Munich has good public schools so we rent our place in that specific area !!!? I would like to find out
> 
> 1- Any area(name please) that you recommend us to consider surrounding of Munich ( husband workplace will be in central Munich)
> 
> 2- Your thoughts of the school system ( my kids only speak English and we have no intention of sending my 12 years to Gymnasium road ! She is a creative person would like to study fashion design) and I wonder pros n cons public school versus international school (so far my understanding international schools provide English and German language and putting my 12 years into a public system with zero Germans will be 'throwing her into the deep end' ) All advice and tips appreciated!


Is this a long term move or just for a few years?


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## *Sunshine*

Turkglocal said:


> 2- Your thoughts of the school system ( my kids only speak English and we have no intention of sending my 12 years to Gymnasium road ! She is a creative person would like to study fashion design) and I wonder pros n cons public school versus international school (so far my understanding international schools provide English and German language and putting my 12 years into a public system with zero Germans will be 'throwing her into the deep end' ) All advice and tips appreciated!


How many languages does your daughter already speak? Has she already started learning German online? Just being on German soil is not going to miraculously make it possible for her to start speaking German. 

The school system was already overwhelmed before the pandemic and you need to find a school that not only has a language programme for foreign children who don't speak any German, but has also adapted it for the pandemic. Your husband and his B2 German is not going to be enough.


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## Nononymous

A 7-year-old will likely be fine going into local public school as long as they have some support. I'm not sure how the system works in Bavaria but be aware that the selection for Gymnasium stream can start pretty early, so expect some stress if they are struggling to get up to speed with German.

Putting a 12-year-old with no German into a public school would be cruel and doomed to failure unless they have an exceptional talent for learning languages. Though it's been a quite a few years now since we had a child in a German school (for a semester only, and with good German), some thoughts:

1. German schools were never particularly good at teaching and integrating children without German as a first language. (Canada is quite good at this; Germany comparatively bad.)

2. The influx of refugee children in 2015/16 put serious strains on the system.

3. Presumably the pandemic has made it all worse.

If you did find a place in a public program for non-German speakers, I expect it would not be Gymnasium leading to the Abitur, but I'm just guessing here. You would be far better off looking for a private international school with instruction primarily in English, but these are not cheap.


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## *Sunshine*

Nononymous said:


> 1. German schools were never particularly good at teaching and integrating children without German as a first language. (Canada is quite good at this; Germany comparatively bad.)


That is the understatement of the year. In 2018 18% of all foreign children left school without a secondary school diploma and I'm not talking about an Abi, but rather they didn't even manage a Hauptschulabschluss. 

More importantly, the pandemic has basically eliminated all of the regular avenues for out of class social language acquisition making it even more unlikely that foreign children who don't already speak German will be able to improve much in the coming year.

Furthermore, the pandemic has pushed a strained educational system towards the breaking point and many parents were not able to make up for the months of cancelled classes. Teachers are currently overwhelmed with trying to fill the gaps in their students' education and it is unlikely that support for students who don't speak German will be increased any time soon.

BTW, don't forget we are talking about Bavaria where even children in a Hauptschule are expected to read and write proper German to pass (unlike states such as Berlin where not even all the German kids are capable of writing proper German).


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## Nononymous

*Sunshine* said:


> BTW, don't forget we are talking about Bavaria where even children in a Hauptschule are expected to read and write proper German to pass (unlike states such as Berlin where not even all the German kids are capable of writing proper German).


As a proud former resident of Berlin I want to resent that comment - but I expect it's true. Allet jut.

Apropos education, I'm pleased to report that our cunning multi-year plan of Saturday morning German school, summer camps during the holidays, and three separate half-year visits (in Kindergarten, 4. und 8. Klasse) did the job. Despite some occasional stress and resentment, her German is quite good, she's continued studying it at university, and will probably be heading over for a long research trip sometime in the near future.


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## Andrea USA

Did you figure this out? We are also looking to move to Munich for a sabbatical year and are working hard on our German (kids 9 and 12) but really can't afford the $60k for two kids in the international schools. We could swing the cost of a bilingual school, but they all seem to want fluent German...


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## ALKB

Andrea USA said:


> Did you figure this out? We are also looking to move to Munich for a sabbatical year and are working hard on our German (kids 9 and 12) but really can't afford the $60k for two kids in the international schools. We could swing the cost of a bilingual school, but they all seem to want fluent German...


To be very honest, if it's just for a sabbatical (is that one year?) I'd go with the catchment area school, see it as an experience of learning a foreign language and culture rather than an academic year they need to pass and have them potentially repeat the year when you get back home.


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## Nononymous

ALKB said:


> To be very honest, if it's just for a sabbatical (is that one year?) I'd go with the catchment area school, see it as an experience of learning a foreign language and culture rather than an academic year they need to pass and have them potentially repeat the year when you get back home.


The success of that approach depends on how well the kids cope with being hurled into the deep end of the pool. Twelve might be a little too old for that sort of shock treatment. But otherwise it's probably the best idea - certainly the most interesting. 

When ours did half of grade 8 at a regular school in Berlin (they already had a good grip on the language) we made it very clear that marks did not matter, the half-year was all about improving the language and having an experience, and it would be easy to catch up on anything missed after we returned home.

The one thing I would absolutely not to do, which can be sadly typical on sabbaticals, is to sign the kids up for some sort of remote learning from a US school. (You'd think the novelty would have worn off, after the past few years.) They spend the year stuck in the apartment with no local friends, utterly dependent on their parents for socialization.

If the kids are into sports or other activities there will be lots of clubs and teams they can get involved in. Just be aware that if they are doing full immersion, for the first few months their brains are going to be extremely sore by four every afternoon, and they will basically need to spend an hour or two in a quiet, dimly lit room to recover.

We had a friend who'd regularly come to Berlin at the beginning of May, after the university semester, and toss his kids into whatever local school he found for the remaining month or two of the school year. The kids were resilient, they picked up a few words of German and seemed to enjoy being local curiosities. But they we were also younger than 9 and 12 and clearly had thicker skins than our own kid, who would probably have gone catatonic had we tried that.

Finally, Berlin has a couple of no-fee options in English (the JFK School for Americans only, and the public Mandela School for expats on short assignment) but I don't believe that Munich has anything similar.


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