Ein Gastschüler aus London schildert seine Eindrücke am Paulsen-Gymnasium und vergleicht unsere Schule mit der Hall Mead School.

I am a pupil at Hall Mead School in England and I am the current year ten. For my work experience I have been working at Paulsen, completing various tasks, however I am also experiencing their day-to-day school life and comparing it to Hall Mead.

Firstly, the most striking feature of the Gymnasium (the school), is the garden: it is the biggest in Berlin, measuring six-thousand square metres. The garden is not only home to plants but animals too, such as, chickens, bees, mice, rabbits and fish. The school supplies the housing, food etc and the students give their time to care for the animals. I think this really gives the school its character, it allows students, who can´t keep pets at home, to keep them at the school. The reason why this is such a good idea is because it introduces the key life skill of responsibility. When the students leave Paulsen, they will face several responisibilities therefore, if they can take responsibility now it will benefit them in later life! Here, the school does not only educate the children academically but in significant life skills too. Hall Mead focusses less on these important life skills.

Secondly, in Hall Mead you do not attend classes with your form group and your classes are based on the subjects you have chosen. In Paulsen, most of your classes are spent in your form groups, which means you are with the same people almost throughout your school life. Sometimes this is viewed in a negative mannor because you are not socialising with a variety of people. (At lunch and break times there is no restriction of socialising with people from different forms). I believe that spending your school life with the same people, creates strong bonds between classes, this altogether means the learning atmosphere is much better because there is minimal tention betwen pupils. There is clear evidence of this from just looking around a class - everybody gets on with everybody! Overall, the pupils' academic success increases!

Finally, in Hall Mead you have set hours everyday and you have the same routine everyday but obviously different lessons. Paulsen students' routine is different: they have some long, some short days, finish and start at different times. Sometimes the school year/school life becomes very repetitive although, Paulsen´s use of different times differs their school life and it becomes less of a cycle. Paulsen students will get less bored because of difference, they will also enjoy and value their school life much more.

Overall, both Hall Mead and Paulson are very different schools, which use different teaching methods, however they both achieve high grades.

Todd Surridge, Hall Mead School