Windthorst-Gymnasium Meppen

Windthorst High School
	The WGM from Gymnasialstraße
type of school	high school
School number	67453
founding	1642
address	Gymnasialstrasse 3, ; 49716 Meppen
place	Meppen
country	Lower Saxony
Country	Germany
carrier	Emsland district
student	1,050
Teachers	about 88
management	Daniela Brüsse-Haustein
Website	windthorst-gymnasium.de

Ludwig Windthorst

Windhorst monument in front of the Meppen Windhorst grammar school

The Windthorst-Gymnasium is a high school in the Emsland district town of Meppen . Currently, 1050 students attend this school, 54% of them girls. The students are taught by 73 teachers. The teaching staff includes two subject managers who work in teacher training and trainee lawyers . Two federal volunteers support physical education.

The school is located on Gymnasialstraße in the old town of Meppen. It has its own auditorium and two sports halls . The residence belonging to the school (built in 1642, expanded from 1726–1729) and the adjoining grammar school church (built 1743–1746) are historically interesting . In the garden of the residence there is a statue of Ludwig Windthorst , who gave the school its name. The statue of Francis of Assisi stands in front of the main building .

history

It was founded by the Jesuits as the Gymnasium Marianum-Aloysianum in 1642. It was created in the course of the Counter Reformation . A library was built as early as the 17th century.

In 1820 it was renamed the Royal Gymnasium for Boys Meppen and was subordinate to the King of Hanover , who gave the gymnasium its own school regulations. The grammar school has had the right to take Abitur exams since 1833. It was now considered a first-class grammar school .

From 1935 to 1945 the school was called Emslandschule and was then called Gymnasium für Jungs Meppen until 1973 , and until 1981 it was called Kreisgymnasium Meppen . Eventually it was named in Windthorst-Gymnasium Meppen , as it is still called today. Since May 8, 2006, the school has also been allowed to call itself the European School .

The Jesuit residence (1729) and the grammar school church (1746) date from the time the school was built . The classroom building, auditorium and gymnasium were built in the late 1950s. Another classroom building was added at the end of the sixties. At the same time as a specialist room building, the large gymnasium was put into operation in 1976. In 2010, a new building for the natural sciences and art was inaugurated as an award-winning passive house . It also contains a modern media library, a large assembly room and an invitingly designed cafeteria with a kiosk and hot meals for the students at lunchtime. In the cafeteria, students also have the opportunity to play billiards or table football. All of the school's older classroom buildings have been energetically refurbished in recent years and brought up to date in terms of both looks and technology. Newly designed schoolyards invite students to take part in a variety of activities during breaks. A total of over 10 million euros was invested.

Funding in the MINT area

High school church

The Windthorst-Gymnasium Meppen is a "lighthouse school" in the national excellence school network MINT Ec . As a result of membership, the Windthorst-Gymnasium can issue the MINT-EC certificate to particularly committed pupils , which can bring considerable advantages when looking for work and study places in the MINT area. In order to become a member of this network, numerous support and challenge opportunities are necessary for the students. There are numerous projects with regional companies and Lingen University of Applied Sciences at Windthorst-Gymnasium. For example, there is a one-week "MINT camp" with numerous other Emsland high schools, Emsland companies and the Lingen University of Applied Sciences.

Furthermore, in the years 5./6. a MINT profile is offered and a two-hour MINT elective in grades 7–10. In the elective course, the interdisciplinary program changes every six months and includes, for example, topics from "bionics", "robot construction and programming", macromolecules or "3D printing". This is often combined with field trips to local companies and other extracurricular learning locations.

In addition, participants from the Windthorst-Gymnasium take part in a variety of different competitions. For example, in the competitions " Students experiment ", " Jugend forscht ", " First Lego League " with qualification and participation in the World Championships in the USA in 2014 and " Chemistry Olympiad " with a school award for "continuous promotion" 2015/16 and as "best School in Lower Saxony “2016/17 and 2017/18.

In the upper secondary level , all natural sciences and mathematics are offered in courses at an advanced and basic level. In addition, there is a STEM seminar subject every year, such as "Electrical engineering", "Arduino programming" or "Chemistry in everyday life". In addition, a "science day" is organized every year, on which speakers from technical colleges and universities present their field of work.

Partnerships

The Windthorst-Gymnasium has partnerships with schools in France , the Netherlands , Poland and Tanzania . The long-term student exchange with the Collège André Streinger in Douai should be emphasized here .

Awards

MINT EC school
Europaschule (Germany)
Sport-friendly school
School without racism - school with courage
Pilot school in the HPI School Cloud project
Seal of approval "Ready for the job - Weser-Ems goes to school" 2017

Known students

Tonio Bödiker (1843–1907), civil servant and president of the Reich Insurance Office
Wilhelm Guddorf (1902–1943), journalist and resistance fighter in the Third Reich
Gerhard Henschel (* 1962), writer
Hermann Lause (1939–2005), film and theater actor
Werner Müller (1946–2019), Federal Minister of Economics (1998–2002)
Reinhold Schaffrath (* 1946), actor, singer, theater scholar and director
Ferdinand Schöningh (1815–1883), publisher and bookseller
Albert Trautmann (1867–1920), pharmacist and writer
Emil Russell (1835–1907), lawyer

Customs

Up until 2002 it was the custom at Windthorst-Gymnasium for high school graduates to organize a so-called Abiumzug. To this end, all high school graduates built figures on a chosen topic, decorated the buildings, printed T-shirts and produced a school newspaper . After a morning with games and music entertainment by a band, there was then the move through the city (until 1996) to the high school Marianum .

In 2002, a public "Abitur" celebration was held for the first time on the student meadow. Under the motto Stars on Stage , various bands from northern Germany were invited by the Meppen high school graduates on the day after the Abitur exams. Stalls with sausages and drinks took care of the physical well-being. The following years have taken up and continued the practice of an annual event. In 2004 this event was then carried out as " Rock unter Linden " together with the respective Abitur class of the Marianum high school, also in Meppen. This event took place annually from 2006 to 2014, and the vocational high school for economics and technology has also been involved since 2012. The increasing number of visitors ensured that the city of Meppen had tougher requirements for " Rock unter Linden ", such as a new security concept, and provided costs that the three graduates could not finance through sponsors, ribbon sales and beer sales and therefore stopped the organization.

The idea of a music event organized by high school graduates was partially adopted by a better-known traditional event in the neighboring town of Lingen . The “ Abifestival ” there has been taking place since 1981.

Picture gallery

Building B with rooms for music and seminars
Building E with classrooms and staff rooms
Building F for natural sciences, in between the Jesuit walkway with the transfer to the E building
Rear of the residence and the grammar school church