# Moving to Berlin. Best neighborhood/school for my son



## WishPirate (Nov 14, 2016)

I'm looking at moving to Berlin in February. My son and I are both native English speakers from the USA. My son is also a native Korean speaker. 

My son is 7, so I'm sure he can learn German well enough in our first year there.

Still, for his social adjustment, if there's a part of Berlin that may have other little kids who speak either English or Korean, I'd want to aim for moving to that part of Berlin.

Can anyone give me a recommendation for some expat neighborhoods in Berlin where my son might have other little kids he can talk to right away, before he masters German?


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

I can't speak to Korean, but for general English-speaking expats you're probably best off in the vast swath from Kreuzberg through Mitte to Prenzlauer Berg. 

Putting your son into German school is fine at this age, but be aware that streaming for Gymnasium starts pretty early (grade 5 or 6 I think for Berlin) so you'll want to ensure he has additional help learning German so that he doesn't fall behind and fail to make the cut. Generally speaking there is very limited support in the schools so that's something you'll need to do privately. 

You will likely be assigned to a school based on your address, so when moving you might want to pay careful attention to the quality of the local primary schools. (When we lived in Kreuzberg ten years ago you literally wanted to be on one side of a particular street, not the other, because that was a catchment border and one school was considerably better than its counterpart.) 

In this case, if you don't have great insight into the local school system, you might be better served by looking at neighbourhoods with fewer expats but better schools overall, which at the risk of sounding racist will be the more ethnically homogenous (i.e. German) and economically prosperous areas to the south and west of the center. Your commute may also be a factor, depending on what your work situation looks like.


----------



## WishPirate (Nov 14, 2016)

Very helpful, thanks!

Is there any good resource to help me figure out which schools are best and learn more about the local school system?


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

There's not much out there online, to my knowledge. Maybe try schulradar.de, though it seems to be down at present. Most resources will be in German, of course.

And of course the official city site: https://www.berlin.de/sen/bildung/schule/berliner-schulen/


----------



## *Sunshine* (Mar 13, 2016)

After reading your other threads, I don't know whether you can afford to live in the areas with the good public schools. 

You might want to try putting your kid on the waiting list for the JFK.


----------



## ALKB (Jan 20, 2012)

WishPirate said:


> I'm looking at moving to Berlin in February. My son and I are both native English speakers from the USA. My son is also a native Korean speaker.
> 
> My son is 7, so I'm sure he can learn German well enough in our first year there.
> 
> ...



The bilingual English-German state schools are in the former British and American-administered sectors of (West) Berlin. 

The bilingual Europa schools usually have spaces for English native speakers or make space since they need English native speakers to justify getting all that EU funding 

Charles Dickens Primary School Berlin

Home - Quentin-Blake-Europeschool

Then there is the JFK school (50/50 funded by Berlin and the US government):

John F. Kennedy School Berlin | John F Kennedy School Berlin (hard to get into)

and Nelson Mandela International:

Home - NMS - Nelson Mandela School, Berlin



Downside: if you want to be in walking distance (no school buses) you'll be dealing with rather expensive neighbourhoods.


An interesting alternative might be Potsdam. It's right around the corner from Berlin, has links to the Berlin public transport system but is a bit apart from all the pressures. Not that rent in Potsdam is cheap, there are definitely very expensive areas but could still be worth looking into.

Potsdam has a private English-medium school with tuition based on the parents' income, so it's much more affordable than Berlin private international schools:

International primary school Potsdam | WIS Wissenschaftsetage im Bildungsforum Potsdam

ENGLISH VERSION - is-potsdams Webseite!


----------



## WishPirate (Nov 14, 2016)

@Sunshine-- I've already been in contact with JFK. And @ALKB-- great stuff thanks.
@Sunshine, or @ALKB, or @anyone-- just how bad are the "bad" public schools in Berlin?


----------



## ALKB (Jan 20, 2012)

WishPirate said:


> @Sunshine-- I've already been in contact with JFK. And @ALKB-- great stuff thanks.
> @Sunshine, or @ALKB, or @anyone-- just how bad are the "bad" public schools in Berlin?


Well, officially, all schools are equally good, there is no ranking.

Practically, you can end up with 95% non native speakers in a class, which slows things down considerably when the language taught in is German.

Or you could end up in an area where there are loads of native speakers but families are, hm, traditionally not very academically inclined. 

So, it's not really the schools as such but more what the schools have to deal with, how the school uses their resources and how involved or uninvolved the parents are.

Having said that, you can always end up with a fantastic class and class teacher or a horrible class/class teacher no matter whether you are in a social hot spot or an area with villas in parks behind high walls.


----------



## ALKB (Jan 20, 2012)

WishPirate said:


> @Sunshine-- I've already been in contact with JFK. And @ALKB-- great stuff thanks.
> @Sunshine, or @ALKB, or @anyone-- just how bad are the "bad" public schools in Berlin?


Okay, so, since I am off work today 

I know several people who have their children at Charles Dickens and love the school.

One of them is Australian and moved to a flat across the street from the school.

The other one is German with an Irish spouse and they moved to Spandau because they could not afford to move any closer.

They live in this general area:

https://www.immobilienscout24.de/ex...searchId=155be544-6bb0-37fe-b5ab-5b6c53039391

It's too far to walk but they use bicycles in summer and the direct bus (about 25 minutes) in winter. If you are planning to have a car, that would of course make the school run easier. In general, German children are expected to make their own way to school relatively early and I think my friend's son took the bus by himself at the very latest in 2nd grade.

If you can deal with a commute like that, then Spandau is a pretty good area to look at.


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

WishPirate said:


> just how bad are the "bad" public schools in Berlin?


The press really hyped this up back in the day, so take it with a grain of salt... Rütli School

Suffice to say that if having your child learning German is a goal, probably best to avoid Neukölln. Which is a pity because it can be a great neighbourhood.


----------



## WishPirate (Nov 14, 2016)

@Nonymous-- most of my friends in Germany live in Neukölln, and I've cetainly gotten a "good vibe" from the place in past visits. Social factors as well as language ones are important to me. Can you tell me a little bit more about the neighborhood? 

(My friends in Neukölln are weird art/hippie types who live in punk houses, so much as I love them, it's made me uncertain that the neighborhood in general is actually family friendly. I'd ask them, but they wouldn't know....)


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

Neukölln is lots of fun. It's an old working class neighbourhood that became an immigrant neighbourhood but has been rapidly gentrifying, hence the "weird art/hippie types who live in punk houses". Gentrification is not without it's tensions - I did read of protests outside the first vegan restaurant, which was a sign of the apocalypse to lifelong residents. 

I never know what "family friendly" means in the context of Berlin. You can walk down the street without being robbed, and there are parks and playgrounds everywhere. 

Schools would be my concern though. Probably for this reason lots of hipsters leave Neukölln and move to Zehlendorf or Pankow when their kids turn five. Unless things have changed dramatically or you are very careful about finding an exception, you likely end up in a school where the vast majority of students speak Arabic or Turkish and, given the general weakness of the German system as far as integration and educating these kids, academic performance and expectations of success will be quite low - very few will go on to Gymnasium. It would be an extremely challenging environment.


----------



## ALKB (Jan 20, 2012)

WishPirate said:


> @Nonymous-- most of my friends in Germany live in Neukölln, and I've cetainly gotten a "good vibe" from the place in past visits. Social factors as well as language ones are important to me. Can you tell me a little bit more about the neighborhood?
> 
> (My friends in Neukölln are weird art/hippie types who live in punk houses, so much as I love them, it's made me uncertain that the neighborhood in general is actually family friendly. I'd ask them, but they wouldn't know....)


I am from the southern part of Neukölln.

There are four major parts to Neukölln: Nordneukölln, Britz, Buckow and Rudow (and Gropiusstadt but I don't think this has officially been made a separate district).

The north is still a social hot spot, even in spite of incoming hipsters who can't afford Friedrichshain anymore (or who find it lacking in authenticity since so many hipsters have moved in).

The further you go south, the less problematic the schools are, generally speaking. Rents also go up proportionally.

Britz could be a good compromise, it's somewhat in between the gruff north and the leafy Rudow/Buckow.

I'd probably avoid Gropiusstadt. It's an area of high rises that were plonked down in the 1960's/70's when West Berlin was in desperate need of housing and obviously had no space to expand due to The Wall. Visitors are often surprised that Gropiusstadt is in former West Berlin because it rather looks like the Soviet-inspired housing estates of East Berlin. (For another example of West Berlin housing panic, look up Märkisches Viertel, the equivalent in the north of Berlin.)

In any case, while the demographic is okay-ish, but just barely, the rents seem affordable at first glance but the monthly 'additional charges' tend to be just as high as the rent or thereabouts, pretty much doubling the amount you have to pay.

On the other hand, the apartments often have amazing views over the city. A friend of mine lived close to the Johannisthaler Chaussee subway station on the 11th floor. It was a very nice place and close to her parents in Rudow while convenient for shopping and public transport. On the other other hand, life really sucked when the lifts were out of order.


----------



## Nononymous (Jul 12, 2011)

It's true, when I say Neukölln I really mean hipster-ridden "Kreuzkölln" and the grottier bits inside the S-Bahn ring. One forgets that there are also vast tracts of leafy suburb. Quite nice along the canal. And Britz has the awesome Hufeisensiedlung.


----------



## ALKB (Jan 20, 2012)

WishPirate said:


> @Nonymous-- most of my friends in Germany live in Neukölln, and I've cetainly gotten a "good vibe" from the place in past visits. Social factors as well as language ones are important to me. Can you tell me a little bit more about the neighborhood?
> 
> (My friends in Neukölln are weird art/hippie types who live in punk houses, so much as I love them, it's made me uncertain that the neighborhood in general is actually family friendly. I'd ask them, but they wouldn't know....)


A schooling possibility in northern Neukölln would be the Lutheran church-run school. It's fee paying but very moderate and very middle-class.

A lot of families from the southern bits and surrounding areas like Kreuzberg send their kids there. 

It's in German of course and there is the question of whether you like a religious flavour with your education.

Evangelische Schule Neukölln | Homepage


----------

