I teach Spanish and English at Marienschule Opladen, a school in the town of Leverkusen in Germany. It is a Catholic school for students between the ages of 10 and 18, belonging to the archbishopric of Cologne.

You do not need to be Catholic to be a student or a teacher here, but I believe that our common religious values unite us; they drive the positive relationships between students and teachers and create the generally harmonious atmosphere that exists here.

I always arrive at school early, to avoid the long traffic jams on the motorways, and to give me time to make photocopies for my lessons. Each morning starts with a cup of coffee and a chat with my colleagues.

We have no social workers at our school, so class teachers take a lot of responsibility for assisting and counselling both students and parents. We use this time to share information, plan common strategies or ask one another for advice.

Lessons start at 8am. Most of my classes are with older students who are preparing for their Abitur exams (equivalent to A Levels).

I’ve worked as a teacher for 18 years now and I still love working with students. The opportunity to accompany them over an important period of their life and observe how they learn fascinates me.

Sometimes, it takes a bit of energy to get students interested in topics that they don’t immediately grasp the relevance of. Without understanding why you have to learn certain things, you are not motivated to really learn them.

This is why I try to involve students in international projects as often as possible and make them co-operate with students in foreign countries, because I want them to acquire the competence to think outside the box.

Refugee presence

Since last year, we have some refugees at our school. Their presence here has made the students pay more attention to political issues. The refugees are part of our school life and have a quite a good relationship with the German students.

Of course, there are some problems - in communication, for example - but fortunately most of the German students seem to understand how privileged they are in Germany. Talking to the refugees makes some of the students aware for the first time of the fact that they have free access to education, can get help whenever needed and have good future prospects.

All the students I teach are between 15 and 18 years old. Shortly before their final exams in June, a lot of them still don’t know what to do after school. Many attribute this lack of orientation to the tremendous changes that the German educational system was subjected to some years ago.

The government reduced the number of years of schooling required before taking the Abitur exam from nine to eight years. The consequences of this were far-reaching.

Right now, North Rhine-Westphalia (the federal state where I live) is discussing whether to reverse this. A lot of people argue that the old system gave students more time to develop their personalities, do more extra-curricular activities and learn things in more depth.

I’m quite curious to see what will happen to the German education system over the next few years.

One positive result of current educational policy is that we have the opportunity to establish a programme for gifted students. We benefit from research and teacher training organised by the European Council of High Ability and, being one of those responsible for this programme at our school, I hope that we can continue to improve our support for these students.

Annette Schäfer is a languages teacher at Marienschule Opladen, Leverkusen, Germany