Forest Park School Heidelberg

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Forest Park School Heidelberg
Main entrance of the Waldparkschule Heidelberg
Main entrance
type of school Community school
School number 2184
founding 1967
address

At the edge of the forest 21
69126 Heidelberg

place Heidelberg
country Baden-Württemberg
Country Germany
Coordinates 49 ° 22 '36 "  N , 8 ° 42' 19"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 22 '36 "  N , 8 ° 42' 19"  E
carrier state
student around 440 (school year 2017/18)
Teachers around 50 (school year 2017/18)
management Thilo Engelhardt
Website www.waldparkschule.de

The forest park school is a municipal community school in Heidelberg - Boxberg , which was named after the forest park settlement on Boxberg. It was inaugurated in 1967 and originally run as a primary and secondary school .

At the 2017 German School Prize, the school was recognized for its “outstanding teaching concepts”.

Description of the school

Until it was converted into a community school in 2013, the Waldparkschule was purely a district school with primary and secondary schools for the Heidelberg districts of Boxberg and Emmertsgrund . After the conversion in the school year 2017/18, around half of the secondary school students from other parts of Heidelberg and the neighboring communities came to the Waldparkschule. Around 440 students attended school in 2017/18, around 160 of whom attended primary school. The college comprises around 50 teachers. Classes are held at grammar school, secondary school and secondary school level.

history

Planning for the forest park settlement began in the 1950s. They comprised agriculturally used meadow areas from an earlier clearing on the Boxberg as well as parts of the adjacent forest. The urban land-use planning of the city of Heidelberg envisaged the creation of apartments for 6,000 residents with the necessary infrastructure while maintaining the basic features of the landscape. Higher-storey apartment buildings were built in the forest area and single-family houses on the meadow land. The first apartments were moved into in 1962. At the beginning of 1963, school operations began in two school pavilions and the current school was inaugurated in November 1967.

The forest park school was run as a primary and secondary school in the following years. From the end of the 1990s, a technical secondary school certificate was also possible. In 1996 the school's gymnasium was converted into a multi-purpose hall . In order to expand the all-day school offer , the school received financial support in the mid / late 2000s as part of the nationwide investment program Future Education and Care . Due to the declining number of pupils in the main school area, the city administration wanted the secondary level to be closed. However, the majority of the city council of Heidelberg spoke out against closing the school in 2009 and 2011 and instead advocated conversion to a community school (GMS). Since summer 2013 the forest park school has been run as one of two Heidelberg community schools. Compared to 194 students in the 2011/12 school year, around 440 children and young people attended the forest park school in the 2017/18 school year.

Architecture and buildings

Exterior view on the south side
View into the auditorium
Glance into one of the classrooms equipped as a “learning office”

The school property, located on the edge of the forest on Boxberg, is partly on a slope , which is taken up by the various wings of the school. The architecture of the school building corresponds to the architectural style of the 1960s: The facades consist of vertically oriented exposed masonry surfaces (made of large-format, red facing bricks) as well as continuous window and parapet surfaces that are both vertical ( exposed concrete supports ) and horizontal (cornice strips made of exposed concrete, lying and mostly larger window formats, horizontally corrugated parapet cladding made of light metal profiles). The individual wings of the building, some of which are offset from one another, are all closed off with flat roofs , with the top lintel or surrounding roof cornice cladding taking up the structure of the parapet cladding in terms of material and horizontal orientation.

The classrooms and specialist rooms etc. have above the lower windows (two-part with fixed skylights, underneath mostly designed as tilting windows) - above a strip of exposed concrete cornice - each an additional skylight window, in front of which the suspended ceilings in the rooms between the exposed concrete ceiling support beams are tapered like a cove .

The building wings are two to four storeys high (classrooms, specialist rooms, administration) and one storey ( auditorium ). The main building of the school is divided into five individual wings with classrooms and the administration area, which are arranged around the school auditorium and an atrium. In addition to a separate building wing with specialist rooms, the school has a sports hall (multi-purpose hall) that can be reached from the main building and the specialist room wing via a covered bridge protected from the weather. The Protestant youth center “Holzwurm” is located in the basement of the sports hall in the premises of the former, disused teaching pool .

In 2017 it was decided to build a new school canteen , which is to be built in 2019 in the northern part of the site, next to the sports hall.

Educational work, equipment and offers

School structure, personalized learning and range of subjects

At the Waldparkschule, students are taught at grammar school, secondary school and secondary school level. Therefore, all three qualifications can be aspired to and achieved via the “Bildungsweg GMS ”. The transition to a Realschule or a general high school is possible at any time, depending on the student's performance. In different classes there are inclusive educational approaches and structures (so-called settings ).

All students are taught at their own individual level. From grade 6 onwards, French is offered as a second foreign language at the Waldparkschule . From grade 8, special emphasis is placed on the profile subjects “ Science and Technology ”, “ Spanish ” or “ Fine Arts ”. An educational and subject-specific feature in the subject "Science and Technology", the regular use of programmable Lego Mindstorms - robots are in the classroom.

Personalized forms of learning are already used in primary school, such as through the use of so-called learning maps .

Lesson structure

Classes start at 7:50 a.m., but for students there is usually a sliding start to 8:30 a.m. Classes end on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays are only taught until lunchtime. Grades 5 and 6 have two afternoons covering all grades.

Learning time, learning diary, coaching and learning portfolio

The personal weekly coaching talks between the students and a designated teacher (learning coach) take place during flexitime . The school's own learning diary serves as the basis for the coaching situations. The students receive individual specialist coaching from the specialist teachers. At least twice a year there are balancing talks between the students and their parents and teachers. Students from grade 1 document their successes in a portfolio .

The students work in all subjects at their own level at their own pace. Daily study times replace homework. The Waldparkschule has its own LRS funding concept for primary and secondary levels. A weekly planning hour begins the school week and a “Showtime hour” ends the school week.

Equipment and learning offices

There are individual workplaces for all students at the forest park school. Each student has their own shelf for their work material. The classrooms thus become “learning offices”; Frontal teaching rarely takes place. The whole school is considered a learning space. There are numerous learning islands outside of the classroom.

All classrooms are equipped with a projector , visualizer and at least one internet workstation . The school has 25 iPads for flexible use in the different class levels.

Grade-free rating system

Evidence of achievement is written on three levels. In order to switch to a new topic, the processed topic must have been completed at least at the secondary school level. There are no classic school grades up to grade nine. The performance feedback takes place, for example, via learning letters.

Promotion of social skills

At the forest park school there is a dispute resolution project for conflict resolution . The primary school children take part in the prevention program “stark.starkker.WIR.”. A class council is permanently installed in all classes. A psychological specialist is available to talk to the students on fixed dates .

Student library and student companies

The student library, which can be borrowed, is managed by a group of students, the "reading scouts". The student company "Lesefuchs" organizes the sale of work materials such as pens, exercise books, etc. during breaks. Another student company, the "Ragazzeria", carries out catering orders .

School dogs

Two trained school dogs are integrated into everyday school life .

Cooperations

Award

In 2017 the Waldparkschule was awarded the “Jury Prize” of the German School Prize 2017 for teaching with a grading system without a grade; the award ceremony took place in Berlin in May 2017 by Chancellor Angela Merkel . The award ceremony was broadcast live by the television stations Phoenix and Eins Plus , and there was a public viewing in the school hall. The school prize jury particularly praised the smooth start of lessons and the feedback culture of the forest park school, which provides each student with a teacher as a personal coach.

The “Prize of the Jury” is endowed with 25,000 euros and, in addition to the main prize, was awarded to four other schools. The Waldparkschule was thus one of the six best schools in Germany in 2017. In addition, the Waldparkschule is one of four schools in Baden-Württemberg that have been awarded this prize since 2006.

Others

The artwork for the forest park school was created by the artist Mehrdad Zaeri , who is closely connected to the school through various collaborations.

Known relatives

Web links

Commons : Forest Park School  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d (red / dpa / lsw): German School Prize 2017: Waldparkschule in Heidelberg awarded. Stuttgarter Zeitung , May 29, 2017, accessed on August 4, 2017 .
  2. ^ A b c d City of Heidelberg: Chronicle Heidelberg-Boxberg. In: heidelberg.de. 2017, Retrieved August 4, 2017 .
  3. ↑ SWR television BW: Education Conference in Mannheim: "Where is my place in life?" In: swr.de . March 13, 2017, accessed August 5, 2017 (video, 2:13 minutes).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Josef Kelnberger: Where every student has an individual workstation. In: sueddeutsche.de . February 26, 2017. Retrieved August 5, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b SWR Fernsehen BW: German School Prize 2017: Waldparkschule is Vice School Master. In: swr.de . May 29, 2017, Retrieved August 5, 2017 (video, 2:28 minutes).
  6. ↑ a b German School Prize 2017: Chancellor Angela Merkel honors Germany's best school. (No longer available online.) In: phoenix.de . May 29, 2017, archived from the original on August 2, 2017 ; accessed on August 5, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phoenix.de
  7. ↑ Philipp Neumayr: German School Prize 2017: The Waldparkschule takes second place. In: rnz.de. Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , May 30, 2017, accessed on August 5, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Nominated for the German School Prize - Waldparkschule in Heidelberg. In: rnf.de. Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen , May 23, 2017, accessed on August 5, 2017 (video, 2:55 minutes).