The German Saturday School, Tonbridge is a parent initiative which does not receive funding and is dependent on the voluntary work of our parents for the administration of our school, plus the modest fees that are charged for running the school and pay the necessary running costs and teacher’s wages.
The German Saturday School is part of the VDSS (Verein Deutscher Samstagsschulen) which is the umbrella organisation for more than 20 similar schools in England. We also have links to the Goethe Institute in London.
All our teachers are native German speakers and have a current and enhanced CRB check. We do not follow a specific curriculum and our teachers enjoy creating individual lessons based on a variety of topics each term.
Classes are taught in German, and cover subjects linked to German and German speaking culture and customs. Our bi/multi-lingual children range from Kindergarten to year 5 on Saturday mornings during school terms (10am to 12pm) following the local British school term schedules.
Our lessons are varied, stimulating and are supported with activities such as arts & craft, games, songs and storytelling in a friendly and secure learning environment.
We require all parents to participate with the running of the school by helping out in the classroom as assistant teacher up to 2 x per term. Each Saturday one additional parent acts as the assistant teacher to the main teacher. The allocation is managed via a helper list in which each parent is required to put their name down for those two Saturdays that suits their own schedule.
We ultimately aim that our children should take the Goethe Institute Exams and leave our school with an internationally-recognised qualification.
We celebrate German customs such as:
- Carnival
- Easteregg hunt
- Mothers’ Day
- Lantern walk
- Nikolaus
In addition we aim to offer each year various other events such as ‘Kinotag’, Football Tournament, German Cake Bake off (to name a few events) and occasionally invite Speakers for Adults or the children.