In order to give our pupils the opportunity to actively shape their everyday school life, to contribute their own ideas and to have a say in decisions, we have created various opportunities at our school.
Here, our pupils can choose from various areas of development according to their own interests - e.g. by living out their social streak in our mentoring concept or by representing the pupils' interests in our SMV (SchülerMitVerantwortung).
The aim of all these offers is to promote sense of responsibility of our pupils.
Heiner Gröger - former student and manager of a waste management company
I remember the small classes and mostly really good teachers. As a pupil, you were taken along and developed a real enthusiasm for various subjects. You also learned to take responsibility at the Schloss-Schule and, of course, social skills were trained through learning and living together. I am grateful for the character development that I was able to enjoy at the Schloss-Schule.
To our alumni portraits
Our SMV - SchülerMitVerantwortung
Students have a voice at our school and are actively involved in the SMV-SchülerMitVerantwortung. Elected members of our student body have a shared responsibility in everyday school life. With 350 pupils, there is a variety of opinions and wishes that need to be represented. The pupils themselves are responsible for this and are supported by the SMV liaison teachers.
At the beginning of the year, two class representatives or course representatives are elected in each class, as well as the lower, middle and upper school representatives . These are automatically members of the student council. Each member now elects the two student representatives in a general assembly. Together they form the student council.
In order to further promote commitment, the SMV is also open to voluntary members. Every pupil is invited to the meetings to get involved or to take a look at current projects.
At the beginning of the school year, the goals and activities for the coming year are set. Traditionally, this includes the St. Nicholas campaign and the Valentine's Day friendship campaign, as well as a large SMV breakfast for the entire student body on the last day of school before the summer vacations. All milestones and particularly good achievements are honored and celebrated together. The basic tasks also include mediating between teachers and pupils, as well as between the pupils themselves.
Co-determine the topic "School Baden-Württemberg"!
Many people are not aware that such an SMV does not only refer to the respective school, there is a state-wide and nationwide SMV network for exchange between schools. For example, there is the LSBR (Landesschülerbeirat). If you are ambitious, you can make it onto the board and influence the school concept in Baden- Württemberg at a political level.
Further training is also offered for the members of the SMV, so that these pupils learn about their rights and opportunities and how to implement them.
The SMV has set itself the goal of beautifying our school with boarding school in 2021 and 2022:
- Our school uniforms will be given modern designs based on student wishes.
- A concept for the school's own garden is currently being developed.
- There are also plans for a charity run at the end of the school year.
The ideas are always passed on to the following student representatives, who then often promote ideas during their term of office that could not be implemented before. The liaison teachers actively help with this.
It is an enriching experience for pupils who are part of the SMV. You get to know lots of new pupils from higher and lower levels. New friendships are formed. The sense of responsibility increases, as does self-confidence. You see yourself as a role model. "You voluntarily take on more responsibility and it's also easier to cooperate," says one of our SMV students.
This also includes giving other pupils the opportunity to get involved and become part of the community ... "to give them a voice"!
The SMEPers: student media mentors at the Schloss-Schule
We at Gymnasium Internat Schloss-Schule Kirchberg are also aware of this: How children and young people use digital media is something they also - and especially - learn from other children and young people. This is precisely why we have decided to actively embrace this effect and enable pupils interested in digital topics to participate in the Student Media Mentor Program (SMEP) offered by the Baden-Württemberg State Media Center for schools (grammar schools, secondary schools, etc.) in Baden-Württemberg and thus become one of Baden-Württemberg's SMEP schools.
A number of Schloss-Schul children and young people in grades five to ten have undergone 40 hours of training to become "SMEP" mentors and are now applying their knowledge in lessons and everyday life at our school.
Their activities range from creating videos for teaching projects to providing support with hardware problems or questions about security settings. In the meantime, a kind of SMEP school company has even been founded, through which multimedia or audio-visual contributions can be "ordered" from the SMEPers. At least one SMEPer is represented in each class level of the school and requests are coordinated in such a way that younger SMEPers are supported by the older ones if necessary.
To ensure that the SMEPers are able to act, we have equipped ourselves accordingly. Among other things, the group has a high-performance camera, an audio recorder, tripods, a high-performance (and adequately insured) flying drone, as well as its own laptop for image and sound editing and for research. This technology will be successively expanded in the near future.
The training is definitely worth the effort for the SMEPers, as they not only get to live out their hobby, but also receive a certified additional qualification from the state of Baden-Württemberg and can help others at the school to better cope with the possibilities of modern digital and media technology.
Our castle-school sponsor system
School transition made easy at Schloss-Schule Kirchberg with the school mentor system - a benefit for younger and older pupils
The transition from elementary school to secondary school and especially to grammar school in Baden-Württemberg is a significant milestone for schoolchildren. It has been proven that school transitions to secondary school can not only trigger anticipation, but also anxiety among pupils. One of the reasons for this is that children and young people are at a stage in their lives when they are more likely to be anxious than at other times of their lives.
The good news is that there are acclimatization supports that teachers, educators and parents, as well as the pupils themselves, can use to give young pupils a good and safe start at their new school. We have been using these for many years.
An American professor of education, Geoffrey Borman, has discovered that the transition to school can be so difficult for pupils because they have to leave the familiar, usually caring and nurturing atmosphere of elementary school and settle into an unfamiliar and strange school. In fact, some fifth-graders at the Schloss-Schule tell their class teachers in the first few weeks of the school year that they are homesick for their old school and their old class. Borman's studies have shown that the following measure in particular helps with the school transition: older pupils, for example from the tenth grade, offer their help to the fifth graders as mentors in all matters relating to school. It has been proven that children listen to young people in a much more relaxed and relaxed manner than adults and are much more willing to accept their help.
The result is clear: both sides benefit from the mentoring system at the school, which has been established here for years. Even the first meeting between the older and younger children on the hiking day at the beginning of the school year and the sponsor election in the playground is always an exciting and fun experience for everyone.
Once the godparents and their "godchildren" know each other a little better after the first half of the school year at Schloss-Schule, they also organize a small event together: the godparents' carnival for Years 5 and 10, a fun, foolish affair that not only the pupils look forward to.