St. Benno High School

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St. Benno High School
Dresden Benno-Gymnasium 3.jpg
type of school high school
founding 1709; 1991
address

Pillnitzer Strasse 39

place Dresden
country Saxony
Country Germany
Coordinates 51 ° 3 '4 "  N , 13 ° 45' 25"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 3 '4 "  N , 13 ° 45' 25"  E
carrier Diocese of Dresden-Meißen
student 735
Teachers 73
management Stefan Schäfer
Website www.benno-gymnasium.de

The St. Benno-Gymnasium in Dresden is a state-recognized school of the Diocese of Dresden-Meißen with a linguistic, musical and scientific profile. The school is named after Benno von Meißen , the patron saint of the diocese. The grammar school is located in the Pirnaische Vorstadt on the border with Johannstadt .

The number of applicants for the grammar school is very high every year. However, only about 90 students can be accepted into three classes per year. The focus of education during school time is on humanitarian values, personal maturity and a sense of justice. All students learn Latin from the 5th grade and receive their Latinum in the 9th grade .

history

The Saxon Elector Friedrich August I (Augustus the Strong) converted to the Catholic faith in 1697 in order to be able to become King of Poland; Saxony, on the other hand, remained Protestant . August's court in Dresden thus included both Catholics and Protestants, who each claimed court services in their denomination . As a result, the court orchestra had to be reorganized and divided into a Protestant and a Catholic group so that both services could be accompanied musically.

Boys who were gifted in singing were recruited in Bohemia to organize the court services celebrated in the Catholic rite . They should not only be trained for singing and altar service, but also study Latin and other sciences. August the Strong provided 5000 thalers a year for the maintenance of the Latin school, approved the school and house rules of the Jesuit- run institution, and in October 1709 classes began with eight students. From the beginning, not only the choir boys (today's Dresden Kapellknaben ), but also foreign students visited the new school, which was housed in a building in the area of ​​today's transition between the palace and the Taschenbergpalais .

Some of the court nobility had also been Catholic since the beginning of the 18th century and attended the newly founded school, so that the number of pupils grew rapidly in the period that followed. In 1741 the school finally had six levels. Together with the Catholic secondary school, the grammar school was housed in a new building in 1787 on the site of the former Italian village . Through the joint accommodation with the secondary school, meanwhile converted from a full high school into a Progymnasium , the school moved into a building on Schloßstraße in 1839 .

As one of the measures to revive Catholicism in the Diocese of Dresden-Meißen, which was re-established in 1921 (the Diocese of Meißen had been dissolved in the course of the Reformation ), the first bishop of Dresden-Meißen, Christian Schreiber , tried to create a full high school again from the Progymnasium . In 1928 the school was recognized as a full high school, in 1930 it moved to a classicist villa on Wiener Straße . At the end of 1939, the National Socialists closed the grammar school and the students had to switch to state schools.

Attempts to reopen the school during the GDR era failed. The Kapellknabeninstitut of the boys' choir at the court church , however, remained in the GDR. As early as 1990 Konrad Wagner , the musical director of the Kapellknaben, expressed the wish to Bishop Joachim Reinelt to re-establish the school. Former students and interested parents called the Katholisches Schulwerk St. Benno e. V. into life, which the bishop entrusted with the execution of the plans. With initially 300 students in grades 7-10, the grammar school started operating in Louisenstrasse as early as the 1991/92 school year and thus as one of the first two Saxon grammar schools (next to the Evangelical School Center in Leipzig ) after unification . Until the completion of the new school building designed by Behnisch in 1996, lessons took place in two buildings that were far apart.

In 2004 members of the jazz club formed an a cappella group that has been performing under the name Voice It since 2006 .

Today about 735 students study at the St. Benno-Gymnasium, who are taught by about 70 teachers.

School profile

The educational work of the St. Benno-Gymnasium should place value on the human maturity of the students as well as their personal and social identity from a Christian world view. It should also promote a sense of responsibility and tolerance as well as the willingness and ability to take a reflected position. The young adults should gain independence and be able to cope with future life.

Religious education includes compulsory religious instruction in which Catholics in one class are taught separately from Protestants in the entire year. However, this separation only relates to the two religious hours during the week. Catholics and Protestant students are mixed in the classes. The school services, which take place before Christmas, at Epiphany , and before the end of the school year, usually with Bishop Joachim Reinelt in the school's gym and in the first week of school in the Dresden Kreuzkirche , are Catholic or ecumenical. Only the service on Ash Wednesday takes place separately for the two denominations in the Protestant Frauenkirche and in the Catholic Sacred Heart Church instead.

School fees

The grammar school charges school fees because it is a privately owned school, whereby the school fee for the second child (i.e. the sibling of the first) is reduced and is completely eliminated from the third child.

Special features of the lessons

The second foreign language at St. Benno-Gymnasium is Latin; unlike at most other Saxon schools, it is taught as a major from the 5th grade onwards. That's why there is only one hour of biology in 5th grade and no regular history lessons. Instead, there are history days on which only or almost only history is taught. They take place at irregular intervals about 1–2 times per quarter. In contrast to normal history lessons, no grades are given. Physics , chemistry and computer science are taught from the 7th grade onwards. From the 8th onwards, French is also taught.

building

The new, futuristic school building designed by Behnisch Architects was completed in 1996 and is a testament to late modernism in Dresden. Among other things, because of the aggressive coloring of the street side, Günter and Stefan Behnisch provided a topic of conversation. Within a short period of time, the building was well known among architects and has meanwhile received numerous architecture prizes (such as the 1998 Bund Deutscher Architekten Prize). What is remarkable about the building is the characteristic glass porch of the break hall. This drops off steeply like a roof, extends from the street to the top floor of the high school and connects the floors inside the building with one another.

Picture gallery

  • Characteristic glass roof

  • Aerial view of the St. Benno-Gymnasium

  • View from Pillnitzer Strasse

  • Flag with school logo

Known students

All headmasters (since 1991)

  • Hansjörg Höhne (1991–1996)
  • Frido Pflüger (1996-2003)
  • Stefan Schäfer (from 2003)

literature

  • Gilbert Lupfer, Bernhard Sterra and Martin Wörner (eds.): Architecture guide Dresden. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01179-3 .
  • Frido Pflüger SJ / Jürgen Leide: The St. Benno-Gymnasium in Dresden . In: What church schools? Profiles, problems and projects; a contribution to the current educational discussion . Marion Wagner (ed.); LIT Verlag, Berlin-Hamburg-Münster 2001. ISBN 3-8258-4880-9
  • Jens Daniel Schubert / Jörg Leopold (eds.): From one root: 300-year history of the Dresden Kapellknaben and the St. Benno-Gymnasium Dresden . St. Benno-Verlag, Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-7462-2765-8

Web links

Commons : St. Benno-Gymnasium  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] Facts about the school, accessed on June 10, 2020
  2. ↑ Teaching staff. St. Benno-Gymnasium, accessed on May 14, 2017 .
  3. ↑ St. Benno Catholic School (Dresden): From one root: 300-year history of the Dresden Kapellknaben and the St. Benno Grammar School in Dresden . Benno, Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-7462-2765-8 .
  4. ↑ General information - facts about the school - St. Benno-Gymnasium Dresden. Retrieved June 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ St. Benno High School, Dresden. Association of German Architects, accessed on June 19, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Lupfer et al., No. 80 (St. Benno Gymnasium)
  7. ↑ https://www.saechsische.de/plus/dresden-wurzeln-miss-germany-5045609.html
  8. ^ Diocese of Dresden-Meißen. Retrieved June 22, 2020 .
  9. ↑ A teacher for the meaning of life: Ploughman leaves, shepherd comes - change of headmaster at Benno-Gymnasium Dresden. Retrieved June 22, 2020 .