Teaching at a private school

"It was a very deliberate decision to go to a private school," says Katharina Kaufmann, who teaches mathematics and history at the Phorms Education private school in Hamburg. She came here in 2018 after completing her traineeship at a public school. "At a private school, you can apply directly and are not bound to a school by official allocations. Here, teachers are not selected on the basis of their exam grades. What counts is the personality of the individual teacher. I was also attracted by the bilingual focus of all Phorms Education schools."

At the Hamburg location is a primary and a secondary school (Gymnasium). Katharina Kaufmann teaches at the secondary school from grade five to upper secondary school. She has already successfully guided one or two Abitur classes through their exams. "Through the bilingual focus, the students have the skills to work internationally after the Abitur. This opens many doors for them," says Katharina Kaufmann. Internationality is part of the programme: many children and young people who come to the school initially speak no German or not enough English. For them, the school offers language courses so that they can follow the bilingual lessons.

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Katharina Kaufmann enjoys teaching at a private school. Her traineeship at a state school allows her to draw comparisons. "At a public school, the teachers' work is governed by very strict rules. Most decisions are made by the authorities and the teachers' ideas cannot be implemented as quickly," she explains. "In addition, as a teacher at a public school, you enter into an obligation to the state through your civil servant status" - not always an advantage, as the handling of the Corona crisis showed.

Even in times of the pandemic, Katharina Kaufmann feels well taken care of at her school. Air filters work in every classroom. There are also clear rules on how to deal with Corona. These are laid down in transparent guidelines. Masks and self-tests are provided by the school for home use. "We have good contact with our school administration so that we can immediately discuss what to do in individual cases of Corona," explains Katharina Kaufmann. "We are all aware of the seriousness of the situation and act responsibly."

The equipment is also better than at many public schools, the teacher says. There are digital whiteboards in almost every classroom. Assignments can be retrieved from a cloud and blackboard images can be saved digitally so that they can be accessed again at a later time. In the eighth and ninth grade, there is an iPad project in which students and teachers work with iPads in class, and in the upper school, students are allowed to use their own laptops in class. In this way, online tools can also be used in class.

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Nina Odenius, Agency for Educational Journalism

With the kind permission of News4teachers

 

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