If anyone is still reading this, thank you for your patience. I know I
committed to updating it once a year, but life took over and it fell to the
bottom of the list. You might find out why if you have the energy to keep
reading, but I do apologise.
Several years have now passed since my last blog entry and so there’s
quite a lot to go over, but since I didn’t diarise most of it, it will have to
be fairly general. A sort of “we’re all still here and usually thriving” record, which hopefully will be reassuring for some.
As a political aside:
When I wrote my last blog post, 6 years ago, little did we know how the
politics of education were changing in Kanton Zürich. Around this time, the
Kanton passed a regulation disallowing Swiss and long term foreign residents (C
permit holders) from sending their children to international school unless they
could prove that they were likely to be moving away from Switzerland in the short
term. This was a directive to improve the integration of long term resident foreigners,
and ensure access to the Swiss further and higher education for Swiss. I don’t
want to comment on the rights and wrongs of this directive, but it meant that 3
smaller international schools in the area closed in the space of 2 years, and
if you are a foreigner with a C permit in Kanton Zurich, you can forget sending
your child to international school, at least until the end of obligatory
schooling (Grade 9) unless you can prove you are about to move away.
2012-2018
Now for the two young people about whom this blog was originally written.
Our elder son, J, is
now 19, turning 20 in December.
2012-2018: Sekundarschule A, followed by Lehr.
Obviously with your first child you have no idea what to expect when
they hit their teens in terms of growth, hormones, attitude etc. J has always
been small (as am I) and had eating issues as a baby and toddler. As he (very
slowly) grew he was always far smaller than anyone else his age, and we had
been assured that this was just because he had one short parent. However, in
Sek 2 his teacher persuaded us to investigate further as he was still tiny, and
miles behind physically compared with his classmates. So with J’s agreement, we
did.
To cut a long story short, he was referred to PEZZ clinic in Zürich and
under their expert and excellent care it was discovered that he wasn’t “just
short”. He was actually missing almost an entire hormone to stimulate growth.
Thus in the nick of time he was put onto daily growth hormone injections (ouch),
the cost of which, because the condition was diagnosed as congenital, had to be
funded by IV – a long, laborious and complicated form filling in procedure but
thank God for the insurance, as that was the only way of funding such a long
and expensive treatment. After a while, this capitulated him into such an
extreme puberty and explosion of hormones that we were all left reeling,
including him. He grew (and how) – and then his orthodontist was concerned that
his growth had been so extreme that all her orthodontic work would be undone,
so that was also then – to his great annoyance - extended and strengthened –
and also, thankfully, funded by IV (more forms). After 5½ years, in September
this year he is expecting to be signed off from the PEZZ clinic, having reached
his full potential height.
What happened educationally? Well, thanks to all this going on, his
school work wasn’t really his top priority. He sat the Gymi exam again in Sek
2, and then was geared to try again in Sek 3, but in the meantime, most of his
friends had lined themselves up apprenticeships.
At this point, I should digress to explain a little. The Swiss system in
Secondary school is designed for most of the students to go into vocational
training (ie apprenticeships) after Sek, that last for 3-4 years, and give most
of the population an actual certified skill by which they can earn their
living. More on this later, but the school careers advice for all this process
kicks in in Sek 1 (when they are 13), really gets underway in Sek 2 and in Sek
3 is just about done. Each school works closely with the local BIZ (careers
office) to structure and advise the students. Yes, they are just 15 at this
stage, which is, in my humble view, extremely young. At some point in Sek 2 I had
attended an information morning presented in English about the “vocational
route” and it was phenomenally useful, setting my mind at rest, as we had
already realised that Gymi wasn’t a definite given, and the “vocational” route
was completely unfamiliar to us.
So, at the beginning of Sek 3, most of J’s friends had either
transferred successfully to Gymi or had lined up apprenticeships so could make
the most of the year at school. J was still fretting about his future (and
size) but was getting himself out and about doing “Schnuppertage”s (“taster days”)
with various businesses – all part of the careers guidance process. In early
January he was beginning to get quite desperate, and, having sat an exam to
determine his suitability, spent 3 days trialling at the local BMW garage, came
home and said he loved it. Then we were asked to go and see the manager of the
apprentices there (the “Lehrmeister”). He laid his cards on the table and said
that the garage really wanted to hire J as a Lehrling (Apprentice)
Automechatroniker (mechanic). J didn’t want to try for Gymi a third time, so
after a very long walk, quite a lot of staring at the bottom of a gin and tonic
together with long discussion, we agreed and signed him up for the “vocational”
route. Another new and scary part of Swiss schooling.
He immediately switched to preparing for the Berufsmatura (BMS) entrance
exam and passed, and so in August 2014 he started at Berufsschule one day a
week and BMS school in Zurich on Fridays, working long hours at the garage Tuesday-Thursday.
He covered technical subjects at Berufsschule and more classical subjects
(Maths, French, English, German, History etc) at BMS school.
He tells us now that he wanted to give up in the second year but knew
that we wouldn’t let him, which would have been true. 4 years must sometimes
seem interminable for young people of this age – after all, it’s longer than
they spend in Sekundarschule. However, in the meantime he has learnt to work
with a mixed group of people of all ages, backgrounds and intellectual levels (a
life skill if ever there was one), and deal with some extremely demanding
customers (I did mention that it was a BMW garage didn’t I?) He was regularly called
to the front of house to explain technical diagnoses to English speaking
customers. His school grades went up and down a bit over the four years but he
eventually left the garage on 9th August 2018, having successfully
passed both his Apprenticeship and the BMS. The final year was not without its
hiccups – a ski accident in February left him in need of knee surgery and off
work sick for several months, with him returning full time for the last 6 weeks;
so for those months we were organising our own work schedules around driving
him to and from school (unheard of in Swiss culture!) so he could actually get
the coursework finished and sit his exams. But he passed. He has a skill which
he can use to earn his living if he wants to - he doesn’t know if he wants to
do this or to change direction - most of his friends are working in the field
of their apprenticeship - and he can now look to the future.
Our sons now both have dual citizenship (Swiss / British) so J is
scheduled to start his Swiss military service in January, for which, thanks to
the nature of his apprenticeship, he is due to be assigned to the vehicles
division. So he is presently having a “gap” 5 months, and is hoping to pick up
some studenty type work (pulling pints or some such) up to Christmas. Given all
that has happened, we will tackle what-happens-after-the-army in due course.
And so to C, who is
now 17, turning 18 in December.
2012-2018 Klasse 6, Sekundarschule B, Lehr.
Klasse 6 is all about which direction they are going to go in. We
realised that C was never going to be an academic learner, so it would
definitely be the Sekundarschule route, but it never crossed my mind that he
wouldn’t be earmarked for Sek A until the first parents’ evening that year, one
of several where we deliberated long and hard with his teacher about the
correct streaming for him. We really pushed for Sek A but his teacher wasn’t
sure if he would cope with the pressure, and after a great deal of wailing and
gnashing of teeth we opted for Sek B, hoping that he would be transferred up, a
decision that C actively participated in. In truth, I was devastated, feeling
we had let him down appallingly by not fighting harder to get him into A –
after all, it wasn’t a clear choice at all, or so we were told, and we knew
that the options open to him at the end of three years in Sek B would be far
more limited than in Sek A. Ultimately, it was the Ausländer parents against a
very, very Swiss, very very established teacher. What chance did we
realistically have to challenge it?
C started Sek B and was placed in a class of mostly Albanian children
(we have a large demographic of Albanians in our Gemeinde) – but – and this was
the saving factor – with a new-to-the-school, German/Albanian teacher who was
both brilliant and beautiful (I wouldn’t normally mention this but it meant
that she had all the boys eating out of her hand, metaphorically speaking, and
therefore class behaviour was far better than the average Sek B class). Because
she had been brought up in Germany, she spoke and taught in Deutsch rather than
Schweizerdüütsch, and she was, frankly, superb. In Sek B they cover most of the
same subjects but at a differentiated level to Sek A. In theory, if they
sustain an average grade of 5 for an extended period they can move to Sek A -
for C this never happened.
He went through all the same process that J had been through with BIZ
and choosing an apprenticeship route, and the Schnupperwoche, where students
are out on work experience for a whole week in different places, but he remained
very undecided (and quite low in himself throughout this period) about what to
choose. We attended the Berufsmesse in Oerlikon in the November, but with him
coming home still no more inspired. In
the end we opted for some private sessions at BIZ – at no cost to us – where
the careers advisor did various personality type tests along with others to
determine suitability for an apprenticeship choice (perhaps I should also
mention that there are around 400 types of apprenticeships that students can
train for, some of which are more popular and/or specialist than others). His adviser clearly had great expertise so we
left them to it – and they eventually concluded on something that included both
technical stuff and working with his hands – very obvious to us, since
Handarbeit was always one of his favourite subjects at school. So by the end of
Sek 2 he was seriously considering Polymechaniker (precision tool maker) and
another couple of technical things.
Towards the end of Sek 2 students sit the Stellwerk tests, which are
standardised tests - but they are not supposed to include these in an open
document, as the results are private. What all potential employers want is the
Multicheck results. This is a separate, standardised test, that students can
take twice (the parents have to pay a fee of around 100 CHF) and then they can
include the best results with their apprenticeship applications – but there’s
no point doing these until the end of Sek 2, as they haven’t finished the
coursework until then.
As with J, by the time Sek 3 started, several of C’s friends had already
lined up their apprenticeships, so the pressure was on. At the beginning of
this school year, his (fabulous) teacher requested that by the Herbstferien,
all her class students should have made 30 apprenticeship applications. Yes, 30
applications in 7 weeks. As I said before, Sek B students have limited options
at the end of their obligatory schooling, and Sek B also carries a certain
stigma, so this felt like a tough call, but she was adamant that it was a
numbers game. C sat the Multicheck tests (I later realised that he could have
done this in July but I didn’t know at the time) and started the laborious
process of sending off applications. They also did this in school in German
lessons, where they learned to write application letters and their CVs (a
sensible – and obvious – use of lesson time). He had done his obligatory 30
applications by Herbstferien, but still had pledged to continue throughout the
holiday. Dragging him out of bed to do this and check his email when he was
clearly struggling with the rejection emails coming through was particularly
heart-wrenching.
And then he had a breakthrough. He was called for an interview and a
series of Schnuppertage at a precision mechanical manufacturing firm in the
next town. A friend’s father helped him to prepare by practising interview
skills with him in Schweizerdüütsch (he kindly offered this for all his son’s
friends) – and C was called to do a week’s trial, the last day of which was
taken up with exams. He passed, and was offered the apprenticeship as a
Polymechaniker, which he was thrilled to accept. At the time of writing, he has
just started Lehrjahr 3, of 4.
There are two other things of note from C’s third year of Sek B.
Firstly, all third year Sek students have to do a project, for which
they have an exhibition at the end of the year, and for which they have to
write a report. C really struggled with the report side of this, because he
didn’t really know how to structure reportative or descriptive writing, and
this is something I have found very frustrating in all years they have been in
Swiss school.
Secondly - despite all the stigma of being in Sek B, his
classmates ALL found apprenticeships, a higher percentage than some of the Sek
A classes. This was unheard of in Sek B in our Gemeinde, where I was reliably
informed by a teacher friend that most Sek B students “don’t get a Lehr afterwards”
(one of the reasons I was initially devastated by his allocation into this
stream). So, the approach of his German/Albanian teacher was clearly correct –
it IS a numbers game. But it is a numbers game that you have to be on top of
and chasing at the beginning of Sek 3, if not before that.
The Vocational Route
Which brings me onto the obvious question for anybody reading this from
a UK background. How do we feel about the "vocational" (or “Blue Collar”)
route ? Well clearly there is a lot of debate.
I saw this article a while ago, and
it struck a chord for various reasons. In my view there is no point trying to
be an academic snob if you are a foreigner in Switzerland, because, if your
kids do not either make Gymi or fail to get through the Probezeit (or fail at
some later stage), yes, your kids will suffer and so will your own personal
pride. This might make uncomfortable reading, but if your long term family plan is to stay in Switzerland (rather than move elsewhere) maybe, as we did, you have to
ask yourself some hard and fast questions. It is frustrating that the Swiss public schooling system does not appear to enable your children to transfer easily outside of Switzerland, but whose academic ambitions are they,
yours or your children’s? In Switzerland in the public system, children are
encouraged to take possession of their own ambition from an early age, so that
if THEY want to try for Gymi, they are more likely to succeed. Of course we
know from our own experience that one of the drawbacks of this is that the
system can be very unforgiving, and does not allow well for late developers.
Perhaps, more to the point, you
cannot compare the Swiss Gymi/vocational route with the Anglo system anywhere, a
point made well in the article above. A “vocational” route here is the completely
normal thing to do – and, while it has its frustrations (a big bugbear of mine
is the questionable quality of my sons’ command of German writing skills) this
is what they have at the end of it: 4 years work experience, together with a qualification and skill that could employ them, regardless
of their future plans.
In my view, we need to stop
thinking that university is the only way, because it’s not the right choice for
lots of people. The difference in Switzerland, and I am realising this now as our elder son has reached
adulthood, is that the education system is designed with employment at the end of it
in mind, not as something loftier, or unrelated to the economy, as it seems to
be in the UK (and right now, as Brexit approaches,
the UK really needs to be looking at how it sustains its economy). Yes, there’s no guarantee of a job at the end of it in Switzerland but the point is to
learn a skill and have training, to create a highly skilled workforce. Lots of
people change direction after their apprenticeship, but that just builds up a
bank of skills, and lots of people
don’t go to uni until they are into their 20s and have done different things.
Of course I know from experience
that Swiss system is as flawed as any other, but I see in the UK a huge
snobbery around "vocational" training, where there shouldn’t be. What I also see in the UK is a whole
generation of young people stacked up with debt from university and unable to
get on the housing ladder or find a decent job. How is working in a coffee shop intellectually or spiritually rewarding
if you have an academic masters? Do we not want the younger generations to be
able to find work, so that they can live decently, independently?
I’ll get off my hobby horse now.
If you got this far without losing the will to live, thank you for
reading. It’s Friday and the sun is nearly over the yardarm (well it would be had it made an appearance today).
Cheerio for another
year or so.
