News for Parents

At the IGS, the KUH (Collegial Class Visits) has been an integral part of the school’s in-service programme for years. KUH stands in German for Collegial Teaching Observation and is a means for the teaching staff to support each other in preparing and implementing lessons. It is a criteria-based observation of a lesson with subsequent feedback from colleagues. The aim is to improve teaching practice and thus the quality of teaching.
Before each visit, the colleagues agree on specific observation aspects that will be the focus of the lesson. At the subsequent feedback meeting, each colleague can reflect on their own lessons and draw conclusions for future lessons from this reflection.
This week, Mr. Keller, Mr. Kmiecik and Mr. Reisdorf visited Mr Kehm’s Grade 6 Physics lesson. The focus of the observation was on the organization of electrical experiments with student experiment kits, and overcoming language barriers created by formal task instructions.

Children are inquisitive and want to learn. When they reach preschool age, the joy of starting school is immense. But before the time for school cones and backpacks begins, there is still the school aptitude test. This week the preschool of the U6 section started with the tests. The aptitude test for school not only tests the language level, but also the ability to concentrate and remember, practical skills, body coordination, gross motor skills and cognitive abilities in a playful way based on a story.
The placement test serves to outline an overall picture of the child’s performance level, to identify any deficits and, under certain circumstances, to remedy them by the time the child starts school. Whether the child can already do sums or write is not examined – after all, there is still time for that in Grade 1. Children should have fun learning right from the start and go to school with joy; these are the best prerequisites.

It was this exclamation that four second graders shouted as they ran past my office back to their campus and to their class. Everyone should hear it. “Back to school at last!” They expressed their joy at finally being able to go back after 9 long months (since May 10, 2021) to their friends, to their teachers, to their general studies or German lessons, to the school breaks. As much as children look forward to the holidays, they miss their school terribly when they are not allowed to go.
February 14th became a very special Valentine’s Day for our families this year. Finally, the “little ones” were allowed to go back to school: one or two little tears in kindergarten turned quickly to excitement. Many parents told me how relieved and happy they were that morning. We hope that we can experience the next few weeks with as little disruption as possible. Because of course we are aware that the pandemic is not over yet.

Michael Schopp

The first week in the U6 section is already over. It was great to see the children storming the schoolyard, waving happily and discovering the houses on the first morning. After all, things have changed there. Then the first week flew by! Everyone was very busy making new friends, rekindling old friendships, deciding on rules for the groups and learning the daily routines. We are looking forward to the shared weeks on campus.

On Thursday, 10 February 2022 students from Grade 8 gave formal presentations to students from Grade 12. Grades 9 and 10 were spectators.
The presentations from the Grade 8 students were based on their study of John Wyndham’s “The Chrysalids” and concerned mainly social issues concerned with genetics or geneology.
The Grade 12 students presented a formalized comparison of the two Cold War events, the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Bay of Pigs incident, both of which pushed the world to the brink of war.
The students’ work was impressive in its detail and clarity of presentation. IGS can be proud of the hard work which was on display at this interesting event.

As part of the lecture series “Introduction to School Pedagogy” by Prof. Dr. Silvia-Iris Beutel at the TU Dortmund, we received an invitation to present the IGS and to give the students an insight into the structures of a German school abroad. This was preceded by the successful participation of the IGS in the “German School Prize Special” in the 2020/21 academic year.
We would like to thank the Robert Bosch Foundation for holding the German School Prize competition and those responsible at the TU Dortmund for organizing our virtual lecture.

Dear students, dear parents,
My name is Luca Otten. I’m 23 years old and I’m studying to become a high school teacher at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, specializing in mathematics, physical education and physics.
In the last three months I was able to get to know the German School in Ho Chi Minh City better as part of a digital school assistance. Parallel to my “normal studies”, the online lessons enabled me to sit in on mathematics lessons with Mr. Kehm and Mr. Reisdorf in both the twelfth and tenth grades and to support the two teachers. In addition, I was able to gain my first teaching experience in a weekly practice session and thus gain interesting insights into learning and teaching at the German School in Ho Chi Minh City.
I would like to thank all the students I have met in the past few weeks, and especially Mr. Kehm, Mr. Reisdorf and Mr. Foxius, who welcomed me very kindly and made many exciting experiences “in Vietnam” possible for me! I also found it particularly interesting to work out cultural and school differences between Vietnam and Germany, which was mainly done in joint zoom calls with Mr. Foxius.
All in all, the internship was a great experience “from Germany” and I’m looking forward to being able to visit the German school in Ho Chi Minh City “in person”.

Friday 28th January was marked and celebrated in many different ways throughout the IGS family.
This morning, the Primary School enjoyed their ‘virtual’ Tet celebrations with a wide variety of stories and craft activities. They particularly enjoyed listening to Grade 7 who sang a Tet song for the whole Primary school. The celebratory atmosphere closed the day too, thanks to an enjoyable Tet song from the Grade 10 band followed by a very loud and exciting Lion Dance. Thank you to all students for their efforts in making our Tet so special.
While we were celebrating, we also marked the end of our first semester of this academic year.  Mr Schopp summarised the challenging start to the year and noted that we can look forward to a far more positive future. A very special thanks must go to the students who performed classical music during the ceremony.

“This piece I’m going to play is The Earth Prelude by Ludovico Einaundi. Why I chose this piece, firstly because it reflects my playing style, which is simple but beautiful and resonates with my soul.”

Over the last few weeks students from klasse 3,4 & 7 have all put their character design skills to the test in a series of animation challenges. Whether it was experimenting with how shape changes a character’s personality or learning the basics of simple frame animation – the students have outdone themselves this year! Both the kunstraum and our online learning space is absolutely full of charismatic big cats!

Chúc mừng năm mới everyone!

The biggest festival of the year is just around the corner! Tet. On the last day before the holidays, the U6 section organized a big digital festival before all little researchers and discoverers started their vacation. In the morning there was a lot of hustle and bustle. The entire U6 section came together and performed a tea ceremony, where delicious banh tet and tasty banh chung were sampled. All the children proudly presented their Ao Dai, singing and dancing.
Another surprise awaited the children in the afternoon. All researchers and discoverers brought the drums and rattles they had previously made and gave a memorable concert. Colleagues from the U6 section dressed up as dragons and danced the traditional dragon dance to the rhythms and  sounds.
Now the Tet holidays are upon us and the U6 section wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

As part of the Physics lessons this week, the students in Grades 7 and 9 were taught how to build a pinhole camera by themselves. A pinhole camera functions on simple basic rules of optics and thus makes it possible to experience principles that, for example, contribute to the functioning of the camera’s found on our smartphones. Students in Grade 7 were surprised by the fascinating images provided by the pinhole camera and were then able to use the principles of optics they had learned to explain how they are created. Students in class 9, on the other hand, were able to use equations they had learned in Mathematics and Physics classes to predict properties of the images, which were then confirmed by experiments with the pinhole camera.

There has been bustle with dragon costume and drum for weeks, and a tinkling on piano that sounds vaguely like Tet songs. IGS is back on track to celebrate Tet. Grade 8 and 9 boys are busy practicing their dragon dances; classmates improvise drum tattoos; lush ao dai are taken down, shaken and ironed out for the big day.
The school grounds are hung with congratulatory bunting; flowers, yellow and pink, bloom overnight. The Buffalo is dead – long live the year of the Tiger!
At 14:40, 28 February 2022, the day will arrive. And then the dance will start, the people will rejoice, and the new year will begin.

The International German School HCMC wishes everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2022.

The theme of this week in the U6 section was Christmas and Advent. Christmas is the time for contemplation, lights, family and of course the numerous sweet, tempting delicacies. But what is more convivial than feasting in happy company? The answer is baking in company. For this reason, the colleagues from the U6 area met on Tuesday and Wednesday for a joint online Christmas bakery with the parents to get everyone  in the mood for the holidays by baking delicious cookies.

The result was the sweetest variations of various traditional Christmas treats and a home made punch. The next highlight was not long in coming. The year 2021 ended with a colorful program in the U6 area. On Thursday the whole U6 area came together again and celebrated a digital Christmas party with lots of special moments and surprises, puzzles and Christmas carol that made colleagues smile. And of course the delicious punch and the homemade cookies were a must.

After a good 6 months of school closure, there was a real win-win situation on Monday, 13th of December: students, parents and teachers were happy about the reopening of the IGS. Even while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to develop in a complicated way, the reopening of schools for the 9th and 12th grades in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday was a good decision for all of us.
The pupils in Grade 12 were particularly satisfied that they were able to study and work with their teachers on campus again in order to be able to prepare as effectively and effectively as possible for the GIB exams due in May 2022.
Like the other schools, we had developed our own safety procedures, including tests for everyone involved in the days before. We passed our probationary period very well. We hope to get the green light for the general opening after the holidays.
The current decree provides for a definitive decision which will be made in the first week of January. Of course we will keep you up to date.
Many thanks to everyone who helped prepare and design these 2 weeks of offline lessons.

The presentation lesson has been a fixed ritual in primary school for years. On the last day of school, the students from class 3 invited the Koalas from class 1 to a virtual presentation lesson to show them what they had learned in the last few weeks.
First, the students showed a choreographed dance to the song “When the sun comes down”, which they had rehearsed during their sport lessons. In addition to a lot of exercise, nutrition is also particularly important in order to stay fit. That is why Jocelyn and Khanh Ngoc clearly presented the food pyramid and the digestive process – both current topics from the specialist class.
In the end, the Koalas’ skill was still required, because under the guidance of the students in Class 3, snowflakes were made to celebrate Christmas. “I am happy that we were able to show what we have learned in such an exciting way in our specialist knowledge class. Class 1 was really interested and did a great job, ”enthused Khanh Ngoc at the end of the presentation lesson. Class 3 was already making plans to teach the koalas the dance that was performed when the school opens. We are looking forward to it!

“In der Weihnachtsbäckerei
Gibt es manche Leckerei
Zwischen Mehl und Milch
Macht so mancher Knilch
Eine riesengroße Kleckerei”

No matter how old or young,  everyone in Germany knows the first lines of the song “In der Weihnachtsbäckerei” by Rolf Zuckowski, a famous German musician and composer. The lyrics were translated into deeds when the students of class 3 met their class teacher, Ms. Schmidt, for an online baking afternoon in which cookies were baked together.

At the end of the class, the cookies were eaten with the whole family.
“I baked angel eyes cookies for the very first time. Now I also know how important it is to pay attention to the exact amount of ingredients.
“That was a lot of fun and they were super delicious, ”said Jocelyn happily at the end.

On December 3, 2021, the 10th and 11th grade students of the IGS got the unique opportunity to experience the moving story written by the author Phạm Minh Khuê.
The author discussed her book “Wo auch immer ihr seid” (Wherever you are), in which  the well-known scenario of Vietnamese immigrants to Germany searching for a better education is described from the perspective of a Vietnamese family. The chapters that the author presented in her reading were very emotional for many of those present with a similar past.
We were impressed by the author’s deep knowledge of both cultures, her understanding of cultural misunderstandings and, in some cases, discrimination. We can only recommend this book, which is likely to become a standard work for the IGS.

written by Grade 10

Another highlight has been set for the children of the U6 section this week. Previously, they had learned a lot about St. Nicholas, practiced songs and poems about him and even followed the tradition of cleaning their shoes. The efforts of the children were well worth it, because on Monday there was a huge surprise for everyone.
In House D, Santa Claus suddenly came through the door during the preschool session. The children were in awe; exceedingly happy they presented some things they had crafted. St. Nicholas knew something about every single child because he had his great book with him: of course, it was mostly good deeds.
Then he also visited the children in House G, where he was greeted by amazed children. At the end of the day, the children from House G sang a song before saying goodbye to him until next year.

The first candle on the traditional Advent wreath was lit on Sunday. This also launched the U6 section into the pre-Christmas season. Before Santa Claus finally squeezes through the much too narrow chimney on December 24th, however, there are still so many activities, traditions and customs to celebrate around this, the best time of the year. This of course also includes a properly-packed advent calendar.
At the end of November, the U6 section created its very own Advent calendar and filled it with plenty of exciting Christmas activities. There is singing, handicrafts, baking, and theater. There is dancing, reading, and poetry. There is a little door every day, and, at the very end, out pops Santa Claus.