Our school management

Dear visitors to the Schloss-Schule Kirchberg website,

Welcome to our Schloss-Schule and to a place where, for more than a century, young people have been guided on their very own personal journeys. I am delighted by your interest in our school and invite you to explore these pages to get a first impression of what makes our Schloss-Schule special. I would be even more delighted if you were to visit us in person, because a school cannot be fully understood through concepts, statistics, or programs alone. A school thrives on the people who shape it, on its atmosphere, and above all on the genuine interactions that take place there every day.

The Schloss-Schule Kirchberg sees itself as a place of excellent education and upbringing. We understand excellence as an individual attitude. At the heart of our educational approach is the individual young person with their talents, interests, and potential. Our goal is to guide students as they discover their individual best, develop the courage to strive for it, and ultimately acquire the skills to realize it with all their strength. This “best” can find expression in academics or languages, the arts or music, sports, crafts, or social skills. What matters most is that young people are given the opportunity to discover who they are, what they are capable of, and what responsibilities this entails for their own lives and for others.

This educational mission takes on particular significance, especially in light of the challenges of the 21st century. Young people today are growing up in a world that offers them virtually unlimited access to information, is changing at a rapid technological pace, and in which artificial intelligence is increasingly taking over tasks that were long considered uniquely human achievements. Education must empower young people to acquire and contextualize knowledge, recognize connections, exercise critical judgment, think independently, and take responsibility for their own decisions. At the same time, it requires creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace new ideas—and, more than ever, the ability to genuinely connect with others.

This is where the enduring relevance of progressive education lies for us. The Schloss-Schule Kirchberg looks back on a long tradition of progressive education, which for us is far more than a historical legacy simply to be preserved. Its true value is evident in the fact that many of its fundamental ideas seem more relevant today than ever before: learning as an active and self-directed process, the connection between knowledge and experience, the importance of community, the development of individual talents, and the conviction that education must always take the whole person into account. We preserve this tradition, build upon it, and connect it with the opportunities and challenges of our present day.

This includes instruction that is academically rigorous while also opening up spaces for independence, discovery, and in-depth exploration. It also includes experiences beyond the classroom: in music and art, in sports, in projects, in shared engagement, and wherever students discover that learning does not end at the classroom door. An excellent education is evident not only in academic credentials and achievements but also far beyond them. It is equally evident in judgment and character, in independence and a willingness to take responsibility, in the ability to collaborate, and in the courage to forge one’s own path.

As a state-accredited high school with a boarding program and an advanced high school track, the Schloss-Schule offers opportunities that extend far beyond those of a typical school. The school and the boarding program form a shared living and learning environment. Learning, education, and community are not separate from one another but are intertwined. Our students spend time together, take responsibility for one another, shape their community, and encounter people from diverse backgrounds, with varied experiences and perspectives. Personal development takes place not only in situations specifically designed for that purpose, but also in everyday life together: while studying as well as during meals, in sports, during shared activities, in conversations, and—not least—where different ideas come together and young people learn to find solutions together.

As the Schloss-Schule Kirchberg, we provide a special atmosphere for this. We foster trust and reliability, freedom and clear guidance, a drive to excel and a caring attitude. We provide the space for people to connect with one another. In our school community, students feel accepted for their strengths and their questions; here, they are challenged and at the same time experience that they are trusted to achieve their best. In our community, academic achievement and humanity are not opposites, but rather mutually reinforcing.

I cordially invite you to learn more about our Schloss-Schule on the following pages. Discover our educational programs, our boarding school, and the diverse opportunities available to our students. And if you’d like to experience what truly makes our school special—beyond any text or image—then please visit us in Kirchberg.

Because an excellent education begins where people truly connect with one another.

Until then, I remain, with best regards,

 

Tim Carstens, MBA

Head of Education
Schloss-Schule Kirchberg

Dear families and pupils,

My name is Constanze Lucht and I have been Head of Teaching at Schloss-Schule Kirchberg since 2020. I started here in 2016 as a teacher-educator and teach the subjects of social studies, geography, history and economics/WBS.

Having grown up in the Southern Upper Rhine region, I moved to Heidelberg for my studies. Here I studied geography, political science and history at the University of Heidelberg to become a secondary school teacher and graduate in geography.

I spent two semesters of my studies at the University of Wrocław in Poland as part of the ERASMUS exchange program. I completed my teacher training at the Heilbronn Seminar.

In addition to the philosophy of the Schloss-Schule, which attaches great importance to the potential and individuality of its pupils, the internationality of our school was another reason why I applied here a few years ago.

I see the fact that the school concept is continuously measured against current social developments and developed further as a particular strength of our school.