I encourage you to personally tour the school and meet the educators and students, form your own opinion and leave a comment here.
Best of luck with your search for the perfect school!
Tour Details
Deutsche Schule Melbourne is a German English Bilingual School.
The first part of the session was discussing Deutsche Schule Melbourne (DSM) opening a secondary school in 2025. DSM will introduce a secondary school program starting with Year 7 in 2025 – and adding Year 8 the following year.
Currently, DSM is from foundation to year 6. In the primary years, DSM combine the German and the Victorian curriculum. There is no school uniform at the school.
Vibe at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
My impression of DSM is that they are supportive and inclusive environment. Due to being a bilingual school, the focus is largely on children becoming competent and proficient in the use of the German language. German is always spoken to the children and all the teachers employed at the school are from Germany.
They are very understanding of children/families who have no prior knowledge of German or the German culture. They welcome all families from different nationalities, and this was reflected in the students enrolled at the school. There was not a particular focus of the tour as they would like the tour to be catered to the people on the tour.
The school grounds were well maintained, and the playground was at the front of the school but was well secured.
I went into the classes and the teachers mostly spoke German and would translate into English as well. The class sizes were small, and all the children were all well-behaved and attended to their teachers. I went into the prep area and the classes were combined at that time and were doing dancing at the interactive white board.
DSM values respect, trust, kindness, honesty and patience. The school encourages students and parents to enjoy participating in a variety of school events that foster multiculturalism and life-long friendships.
Being able to communicate in English and German enables them to perceive the world from a range of cultural perspectives. It assists them in developing a global view on life and appreciating cultural diversity.
Enrolment at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
The formal enrolment process commences 18 months prior to the child‘s school start. They do recommend you get in touch with them as early as possible to secure a placement. There is an application form that you fill out and if you are successful, the school provide the offer in writing to you. There is a lot of interest in the school. Currently, they have availability in most classes, but over the last few months there was an increase in applications (also from overseas, so they can never guarantee availability).
Languages at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
DSM is a German-English bilingual school. In Year 1 and 2, 80% of classes are taught in German. The proportion of classes taught in English gradually increases so that by Year 6 it will amount to approximately 50% of teaching time.
From Foundation Year to Year 6, they focus on content and language integrated learning (CLIL). This involves running classes in both German and English – and teaching the cultural values of each country. From Year 5, students begin learning French. German, English and French are taught in their respective languages. Mathematics is taught in German until Year 3, after which it becomes taught in both languages.
Sports at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
DSM have PE, but also run two soccer team that play interschool sports. Additionally, they often have external providers during our PE lessons (HotShots Tennis, table tennis, lacrosse etc.) Once a year they have a swimming program.
Music and performing arts at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
Music is in the curriculum. Additionally, parents can enrol their children on the instrumental program or the extra-curricular Choir. They have an end of year celebration, where students perform. Also, they have an annual Soiree for the children who play an instrument and want to show their talent. The Christmas Market is when they have some children singing and sometimes they sing during assembly. They don’t go overseas, but the year 5 and 6 students went to Canberra a few weeks prior to the tour.
Inclusivity at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
There are no specific clubs, but they are an inclusive school with families from the LGBTQI community. DSM do have an individual needs teacher (2024 they will have two). They work with individual students and families, are in in contact with specialists etc. However, as an independent school, they do not receive a lot of funding, so their resources are limited in that area.
Wellbeing and mental health at Deutsche Schule Melbourne
They always look for external programs that support wellbeing. While in class, the teachers are monitoring how the students are coping. Being a small school, everybody knows everybody which makes it easier to keep an eye on the student’s wellbeing. DSM have a counsellor who comes to the school once a week to work with individual students. They also have a student advocate. This is a teacher who actively works with the students and acts as their “trust person”. Students are always welcome to share their troubles with either their class teacher or the student advocate. The principal also has an open door policy.
Camps
In Year 2, they mostly do a sleepover at the school called “Reading Night”. Year 3-4 go on a 2-3 night camp close by and Year 5-6 goes to Canberra (this has just been established).
Final thoughts
The tour at DSM really focused on the culture and improving the understanding of the German language and culture. Due to the popularity of bilingual schools in Melbourne, it is evident that DSM will continue to grow in popularity especially with the introduction of a secondary school. There will be new facilities in the new few years to accommodate for the growth at their school.
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