Every January, all our ninth-grade forms spend a fortnight in Austria learning to ski. This year, Laura Kristin Bornstein of Form 9b wrote a report of the excursion, which has been a favourite with more than twenty generations of FSG pupils.

For photos of the excursion look here.

Many FSG forms celebrated Christmas in their classrooms, and even invited parents and teachers to join them for parties in the afternoon.
One such form, 6b, had its party on Friday, December 16. Read the report by pupils Lisa Edenhofer and Vanessa Schawaller!

1. Bert jumped higher than Daniel.
2. Erik jumped higher than Bert.
3. In the final score, Arne was ranked immediately before Felix.
4. Daniel managed to stay in the contest longer than Carsten.
5. Felix left the contest just before Carsten.

Determine the ranking of the six boys.

This is the kind of problems our fifth-graders had to solve in this year’s »Maths Olympics«.Would you have been able to solve it as well?

20 FSG students between grades 5 and 13 participated in this year’s »Maths Olympics« at the second – county – level. Our county champions were given their awards at Ernst-Barlach-Gymnasium, Unna. Read the complete report by Maths teacher Ms Schmidt, who took the group there.

At least that is what Angelika Brack and Verena Gerwinat of Form 6d think. Their report on this popular annual sports event is now in this website.

You don’t know what »two-country ball« is? Find out more about one of Germany’s simplest and most popular ball games.

On December 1, all FSG music classes, courses and extra-curricular groups played to a school hall packed to the last seat, presenting what they had studied in the previous months.

Here you can find the evening’s programme.

… or: Some things just take their time.

In May 2005, a further six FSG girls passed the last of four »DELF« exams of the highest level, and on November 24, they were given their diplomas certifying their advanced command of the French language.

All »DELF« exams are set under the supervision of the French government. DELF diplomas certify profound language skills and are recognized by all European nations. Preparing for the lowest-level DELF exams takes about 200 hours.

On Friday, November 18, two groups of FSG students attended a reading given by one of Germany’s most successful young writers, Alexa Hennig von Lange. To each of the two groups, the 32-year-old author read from her novels for forty-five minutes. Another forty-five minutes of questions and discussions followed.

Ms Hennig’s highly developed recital turned her texts almost into radio plays – every character was convincingly given her or his own voice.

After the reading from Relax (1997) and Ich habe einfach Glück (I am just lucky, 2001), the three ninth forms and the tenth form asked the author intelligent questions on the literary business, on life as a writer and on the texts, both of which had previously been topics in the German lessons of two of the four forms.

In the fifth and sixth period, three German Honours courses were given a reading from Ich habe einfach Glück, Woher ich komme (Whence I come, 2003) und Warum so traurig? (Why so unhappy?, 2005). The latter two books deal with life in the age group of 30-plus – for some of our 18- to 19-year-olds too much of a stretch of imagination. However, some of the questions in the ensuing discussion showed that indeed several students had listened and understood.

Both students and teachers took the opportunity to have books signed.

Not afraid to touch an itchy subject: Nicole Baron, Stefanie Mai, Carina Richter, Thomas Schiewer, Alicia Schützner (now in form 8c) and Marvin Meng (form 8d) were given their certificates by Biology teacher Peter Gehrmann after the autumn holidays.

The contest is aimed at NRW pupils in forms 5-10. It begins in spring when assignments are sent to participating schools. Results are due in by the beginning of the summer holidays. Certificates are given to those contestant whose entries are ranked in the top quarter.

»bio-logical!« was designed to interest pupils in biological problems and to foster scientific curiosity beyond biology lessons. The assignments are of a theoretical as well as practical nature and are graded in difficulty according to the age of prospective entrants. The general topic for 2005 was the nettle, in 2006 it will be the woodlouse.

• What demand is there for Spanish?
• What advantages and disadvantages are there in introducing Spanish as an additional foreign language?
• What will the effects be on English, French, Latin and Russian, the foreign languages currently being taught at FSG?

We don’t throw them away, we keep them in our »Gallery of Index Pages«. Have a look!

• school choirs sang several times
• sixth-formers and the drama group performed three short plays
• »guardians« (i.e. older pupils looking after new forms) told the new ones what our student body is good for
• our Mediation Team explained how they try to smooth out differences between quarrelling pupils
• both headmaster and fifth-form counsellor personally welcomed the new fifth-formers to FSG.

At the end of their introduction, the fifth-formers, their parents, their teachers and many others planted a horse chestnut in our school yard. By the time the new pupils graduate eight years from now, the tree will not be quite as magnificent as the one in the picture, but it will be a respectable tree all the same.

The English-language chronicle of our last school year is available in this website. Have a look!