The Questions
| Question | Answer
| |
| What is the name of the school? | Freie Schule Heckenbeck | |
| What is the address of the school? | Kreuzstr. 13, D-37581 Bad Gandersheim | |
| School’s phone number and website? | Ph.: +49 5563 705659, www.freie-schule-heckenbeck.de
| |
| School’s EUDEC contact person and e-mail? | Felix Ordemann, ordemann at freie-schule-heckenbeck.de | |
| What is the legal status of the school? | Genehmigte Ersatzschule | |
| When was the school founded? | 2001 | |
| How many students are there? | 81 | |
| Which student age groups are there? | Primaria (6-9), Sekundaria (9-13), Tertia (13-16) | |
| How many (full-time equivalent) staff members? | 6 | |
| How many school hours per day and week? | 5 per day, 5 days | |
| Interested in hosting interns? | Yes. | |
| Interested in the EUDEC Diploma? | Yes. | |
| Interested in the EUDEC exchange program? | Yes. | |
| Question | Three-Word Answer | Further Elaboration, Clarification or Qualification of the Answer
|
| Does applicable law allow your school to follow the EUDEC definition of democratic education? | Yes | |
| Do students have free choice of whether or not to participate in scholastic and other activities? | Yes in general | Twice a week we have a morning meeting in each group which is mandatory |
| Can students easily initiate and suggest scholastic and other activities? | Yes | |
| Can students offer, lead and run scholastic and other activities? | Yes | |
| Can students ‘vote’ on the school’s rules? | Yes in general | The schools managing board and the staff have the power of veto on rules made by the school meeting, which leads to further discusssion. |
| Can students ‘vote’ on the consequences of breaking rules? | Yes | |
| Can students ‘vote’ on the use of spaces? | Yes. | The students are not used to do that. |
| Are there any compulsory activities for students? | Yes | Only the morning meeting of their group (s.a.) is compulsory. |
| Who decides on the compulsory activities and who must participate? | School meeting | There are "ancient" rules from the less democratic times which are still valid and have not been questioned yet. |
| Can students ‘vote’ on accepting and expelling other students? | No and yes | The decision to accept first graders is made by the staff. Only for accepting older students applying for our school the pupils from the appropriate group are asked to participate in the process. |
| Our justice committee may expell other students. This dicision must be confirmed by the managing board of the school. | ||
| Can students be involved in the hiring and firing of staff members, including educational staff? | Yes | |
| Can students and staff equally participate in the decision making process? | Yes an no | See above the power of veto. |
| Does your school need to meet any curriculum imposed from outside of the school? | No | We have to provide an enivironment in which it is possible the learn enough to pass the state finals after the 10th grade. |
| How is student performance and progress monitored and graded? | documentation of classes, notes from the daily routine, counseler | Once a year the student receives a personal letter an the parents are invited to a talk about the last year. We collect the information from notes from the daily routine, the documentation of classes. Each student has a personal counseler, with whom he/she has closer contact. Non confidential information from this contact is also part of the documentation. |
| We do not grade the students performance regularly until they get into final exams. | ||
| Can students ‘vote’ on managing and deciding the budget? | No yet | We are thinking of giving the school meeting the right to manage parts of the school budget. |
| Can students ‘vote’ on the infrastructure of the school? | Yes | Only they have not done it yet. |
| Can students ‘vote’ on the management structure of the school? | No | |
School Description
| Questions | Answers
| |
| How often do school meetings take place? | Once a week | |
| Which decision making bodies are there? | School meeting, morning meeting, justice committee, school conference (basically adults), staff meetings | |
| Who decides who is in which decision making body? | School meetings are for every school member, morning meetings for members of the appropriate group, justice committee consists of 2 elected members of all three student groups and two 2 staff members, the school conference consists of elected members from the staff, parents, students and the managing board. The managing board is elected by the parents. | |
| What is the parents’ role in school life? | See above. And they pay. And some give classes in school or help out in maintaining the school. | |
| What is the parents’ role in decision making? | In everyday school live the parents have no right to decide. They influence the school via the school conference. They have a advisory influence via parent-teacher conferences. | |
| Who is financially and legally responsible for your school? | The managing board | |
| Who makes financial and legal decisions? | The school conference, the managing board has the power of veto. | |
| What is the school building like? | Beautifull | |
| Is your school (partially or fully) a boarding school? | No, but we would like to :-) | |
| From how far do most students come from? | 0-10 km | |
| In what kind of area is the school located? | Rural area | |
| How is the school funded? | two parts by the school government agency, one part by the parents | |
| Can students get a degree/diploma? | Yes, we offer 5 types of diploma appropriate for the 9th and 10th grade plus the EUDEC diploma. | |
Further Description and Comments:
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