The criterion “individual support at school” refers to additional support measures at school that aim at especially supporting refugees or migrants.
In order to assess the extent of individual support in Schwetzingen, the interviewed persons were asked whether there exist preparatory classes at all schools, as suggested by the state Baden-Württemberg and how such lessons look like. Additionally it was checked if the children have the possibility to get private lessons after school or to do their homework under supervision.
33 Availability
The collected data indicates that within the community Schwetzingen, refugee children are indeed supported with respect to their special needs. All schools visited by children from the GUK have implemented preparatory classes or courses, according to the so-called VKL- concept. However, those preparatory classes are not exclusively offered for refugee children, but also for children from foreign countries within the EU or Germans with migration background. In fact the VKL- concept is quite old and needed to be readjusted with the rising number of refugees coming to Schwetzingen (volunteer-2 2015, volunteer-1 2015).
However private lessons or homework supervision are not offered at school. There are possibilities to get private lessons in Schwetzingen, but only outside school, offered by volunteers or professionals.
When asked what should or could be improved concerning the educational integration of refugees, teacher as well as volunteers spoke in favor of a full-day care, which should be implemented at all schools for all children.
“And unfortunately it was not possible to let the children in the afternoon-care too. Because, this would be just, this is a much more playful thing, there is also homework assistance… this would be the idea of integration per se. I mean, that´s what I think, we all think this way.” (volunteer-2 2015)
This way, they argued, German and foreign children would have more time to interact and additionally, there would be time to implement more educational measures. However, right now there are no full-day schools in Schwetzingen. Some schools offer care services for the afternoon, like the Südstadtschule, but those services are not offered for refugees´ and need to be paid.
Reachability
Since the preparatory lessons take place within the regular school time, the reachability of this form of individual support is no problem. Children with special education needs (what applies for most of the children from the GUK) are automatically participating in the offered VKL-lessons; this means no additional “effort” is necessary. Schooling as well as additional language support through preparatory classes is free and does not depend on the children´s residential status or ethnic background.
However, the evidence collected within this research revealed that all three primary schools handle the integration of refugees quiet differently, because each school implements the VKL concept in another way.
According to the headmistress, the Nordstadtschule has two VKL classes, while at the Südstadtschule and the Zeyherschule, a “mixed model” (volunteer-2 2015) is applied. This means the children visit the regular classes, but get additional language support in form of VKL courses.
34 “We for example have one preparatory class and our language development concept provides (…) that half of these hours is used for language development-intensive- that´s how we call it, these are our absolute beginners. And the other half is used for the, let´s say, ”normal” language development needs. (…) this means two hours language development each week per grade and the other nine to ten hours are then used for the intensive language training. This is visited by the children from grade one to four.” (executive_headmistress 2015)
The individual support of refugees at the Zeyerschule, described by the headmistress, seems quite structured and comprehensive, since the there exist two different types of individual support: normal language support and a sort of intensive language training for those children who speak no German at all. In contrary to that, the circumstances at the Südstadtschule lead to the question in how far individual support is really realized.
“In the first year they were here, we had fill-ins and assistance. But here this was quite reduced. Now there are only two, three VKL lessons left, which are used to supervise the children.” (teacher 2015)
Although the school, too, applies the “mixed model”, its way of implementing the VKL concept seems more unorganized. The conversation with the volunteers and the teacher engaged at this school revealed that the VKL-hours are rather limited and that the courses are often not taught by qualified teachers, due to stuff shortage - a problem that was mentioned quiet often by the interviewed persons.
“It is like this, here at this school, the children are mostly participating in the regular classes… however they are also taken out again and again. If we have volunteers.” (teacher 2015) At the Nordstadtschule, two own VKL- classes were established. The children from the GUK visit only those classes and have consequently no or at least little contact with German children (volunteer-1 2015). This model was applied, because the school had so many children that they could indeed form two own classes, but also because there were already so many children with migration background in the regular classes. A mixing of those with the children from the GUK was considered to be too not useful for either side.
“I think each school handled this the way they could afford it. In the Nordstadt they had the capacity to built an own class. …in the Nordstadt the cliental of the other pupils is difficult and they said, if we add two or three non German speakers, it will shift…the teachers there, they reach their limits anyway, because there are many children with migration background.” (teacher 2015)
Which of the models is best to integrate the children successfully into the education system cannot be judged within this study. However it must be stated that the amount of hours, in which the refugee children are support individually and according to their special needs, differs from school to school. All schools depend on the help from volunteers, which come mostly from the Asyl-Ak and assist the teacher during the VKL hours. In case of the Südstadtschule, they even teach the classes all by themselves.
35 “We have no training… we have no training at all… We are released on the children with our lack of knowledge. If we have empathy we might do it well, but we can´t really help” (volunteer-1 2015)
The findings of the interviews suggest that many volunteers feel overstrained, either because they have the feeling that the children do not learn enough or because they have problems to “manage” the children.
“… well I am overstrained with that, I don´t know that… I don´t know how it can be done in practice that such a child learns something” (volunteer-1 2015).
Apparently especially volunteers who do not have experience in teaching do have problems and wished for more training possibilities. The only services offered in that respect are courses on the subject of intercultural sensitivity, offered occasionally by the Protestant Adult Education (Evangelische Erwachsenenbildung).
Usage
The usage of individual support in form of preparatory classes is the same as the usage of normal schooling.