Congratulations for having passed the A2-level exams go to

• Sven Koglin
• Sabrina Kaczmarek
• Jasmin Nowak
• Olga Leingang
• Janine Peters
• Erna Hoffmann
• Jasmin Sehl
• Alexander Schumann
• Igor Mondel.

We also congratulate

• Viktoria Dell
• Ines Wycisk
• Mona Brodowski
• Carl-Heinz Scholten

for having passed the exams at level B1.

It was questions like these that our ninth-formers had prepared to answer for their presentations. Having spent a fortnight in hospitals, o.a.p. homes, kindergartens or on farms, they had plenty to tell about life outside the school walls. In the afternoon of Thursday, June 22, they spoke to friends, parents, teachers and representatives of the institutions where they had worked.

See more photographs of the event.

A large audience enjoyed this year’s summer concert in FSG’s school hall on Wednesday, June 21. Music classes, bands and choirs under the direction of our music teachers presented music of a wide range. Look at the pictures of the concert!

There is a wide range of jobs to be done as a nurse’s aid in a hospital. Adminstrative work is part of them.

»I’d like to stay here and do more of this work,« Marcel Aulich of Form 9a said. He worked as a nurse’s aid in »Park Hospital« in Brambauer, a western suburb of Luenen. Apparently, Marc felt the work he did to be meaningful.

After their internships, the boys and girls prepared presentations to relate their experiences to friends, parents, teachers and representatives of the institutions for which they had worked.

Especially since forms from Luenen get in free of charge.

»Scientific Curiousity – Innovation – Opportunities« – that is the slogan by which North Rhine Westphalia’s state government attempts to foster the interest of the young in technological research. As part of that attempt, schools in every county were invited earlier this year to take part in a robotics contest.

The aim was to develop software for a small Lego-based robot that was to do assignments in an underwater environment – »assignments like saving a dolphin, repairing a pipeline or staking a claim for scientific research,« ninth-graders Maresa Bussa and Michael Schneider report. »The robot was supposed to do all those things by himself – and within 150 seconds, too. We wrote and tested the software from April onwards.«

Read here how on June 7 the FSG team fared in the contest!

FSG has been a grammar school for nearly 100 years. During that century, there have been suicides by pupils of our school. When a suicide occurs, parents and teachers usually spend years asking themselves what went wrong where. Sometimes an adolescent suicide tears the family and the parents’ marriage apart.

FSG teacher Herr Martin Loer, whose subjects are Religious Education for Catholics and Educational Science, has compiled a series of introductions to various aspects of suicide:

• Frequency of suicide
• Adolescent suicide
• Causes of suicide and indicators of suicidal tendencies
• The aspect of imitation
• Suicide prevention.

You have heard about »Bookcrossing«? So have we. And we try to make use of it in our battle against the widespread adolescent unwillingness to read. Actually, with its annual reading contest in Year 5, its participation in the »Prix des Lycéens« competiton or its »book reviews« by and for pupils in this website, FSG is already doing quite a few things against that unwillingness that – as recent tests of our ninth-graders in Maths, English and German suggest – may be one of the reasons why their reading comprehension in all of those subjects proved to be rather poor.

But then, reading is not an activity that plays an important part any more in the lives of families that many of our pupils come from.

This is where »Bookcrossing« comes in: Perhaps the extra interest inherent in turning books »free« and following their progress from one reader to another will lead to the actual reading of more books – or so we hope.

That is the advice that Christian Reiners, Form 10d, gives to anybody who in a bookshop chances upon the pretty cover of Tom Liehr’s novel Idiotentest.(The title alludes to the psychological tests that in Germany drivers with a record of repeated traffic offences have to pass before they’re allowed back at the steering wheel.)

Christian has reviewed Idiotentest for us. His review is one of several dozens by pupils, parents and teachers of FSG.

Franziska Neuhaus, Form 6d, reports:

Kurt, a disabled boy in Max von der Grün’s novel Vorstadtkrokodile (i.e. »crocodiles of the suburbs«), confronted us with the plight of disabled people. We formed teams and started to do some research on disabilities and how people manage to live with them. At the end of April, we put together an exhibition in the foyer of our school.

Read more here!

In April, visitors of our website came from all over the world…

… and browsed for astoundingly long periods of time…

…and did that quite often:

… is a »company« affiliated to FSG’s Chemistry department.

For five weeks in March and April, tenth-form pupils did research for »Sauer Chemical« and carried out its orders.

Read here what this is all about.

The last Friday of this cold March, 6.30 a.m. The wind is howling through Dortmund Central Station and around Florian and myself. But never mind: Our destination is Mainz, where we want to spend the next two and a half days in a seminar organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. There, we want to get ideas for our school magazine.

This is how Wiebke Oehrle and Florian Edenhofer begin the report on their weekend from March 31 to April 2 at Brother Konrad Convent, a conference venue which is situated ideally in the city centre of Mainz, owned by the Catholic Church and run by nuns. Read what our two ninth-formers have to say about the seminar which was paid for by FSG’s »Friends’ and Sponsors’ Club«.

There has been an alumni section in this website since 1997. About 150 former FSG students used it to let fellow alumni, current students, teachers and friends of FSG know their whereabouts, their occupations and their mail addresses.

On March 23, that function was taken over by »SteinWerk« (i.e. »stone works«), the new official FSG alumni website.

At a press conference on March 23, Herr Joachim Künstner, an FSG alumnus of the Class of 1979 and the webmaster of »SteinWerk«, explained what »SteinWerk« is all about (see press release).

The larger idea behind »SteinWerk« is to use the combined knowledge and experience of FSG alumni to help FSG school-leavers find suitable tertiary education opportunities, be they apprenticeships or college studies or internships.

In the days following the press conference, dozens of FSG alumni joined the new network every day. As of April 14, 225 alumni have become members.

There have been »Student Body Weeks of Special Acitivities« at FSG for many years. Just to get an impression, look at the chronicles of our 2005, 2004 or 2003 »Special Activities Weeks«.

Photos: Torsten Kramer

Until then, look at our gallery of photos.

All data refer to the period since mid-October, 2005. More colourful graphs here!

Why so many surfers on February 23? That’s an easy one: The day before, our newsletter STEINmail had gone out to subscribers. However, the newsletter just gives an abstract of each entry new to our page of »Current events« (German-language edition) – for the full story, subscribers must check out this website.

You are not a subscriber yet? Well, isn’t it high time you learnt some German and subscribed?

Quite a few FSG students knew them, as Geography teachers Herr Blaschke, Herr Böhmer and Frau Chromik found out when they organized the contest for our Geography department:

All FSG students between 7th and 9th forms took part in the first round of the »National Geographic Knowledge Contest«. Among themselves, the three best boys and girls from each form selected the school’s best geographer in the second round on Monday, February 20: The winner was Tim Möller of Form 9a, who will represent FSG in ther statewide contest in March. So FSG’s top geographers were

Like the first three, the boys and girls coming in in the next twelve places were all awarded handsome prizes:

Now what about the right answers? Still not sure? Read them here!

The banner says, »No Child Soldiers«. Boys and girls of a seventh-form Latin course hung it up in the lobby of our school.

In their Latin lessons, the plight of Roman gladiators had triggered the pupils’ concern. On Friday, February 10, they made the banner – just in time for »Red Hand Day« two days later, for which »The White Ribbon of Peace«, a national initiative, had scheduled a nation-wide campaign against children being used as guerilla fighters.

Read more about what our seventh-formers had to say about their activity.

Everybody knows that learning to play an instrument has a positive effect on a child’s intelligence and on its ability to relate in groups. Learning to play a string or brass instrument is therefore a special extra-curricular teaching project at FSG. The school’s »Friends’ and Sponsors’ Club« as well as its »Dr Jordan Foundation« contribute to the cost of using an – insured – instrument and of learning from professionally trained instrumental teachers.

At the beginning of every school year fifth-formers are invited to come to try-out instrumental lessons. In small groups, the eleven-year-olds can find out if they like making music.

More information can be found here.

Songül Akyürek	Sema Dayi	Joachim Hengelbrock	Dirk Schulz	Elena Tryaskova	Rainer Wiesniewski

• Frau Songül Akyürek (German and French)
• Frau Sema Dayi (Social Sciences and Educational Science)
• Herr Dirk Schulz (Mathematics and Physics)
• Frau Elena Tryaskova (Russian and German)
• Herr Rainer Wisniewski (Computer Science and Mathematics).

Herr Joachim Hengelbrock (Mathematics and Computer Science) completed parts of his training at FSG at the beginning of last year and joined FSG fully at the beginning of this year for the remainder of his training.

Management and staff of FSG welcomed the young colleagues cordially and wished them good luck.

Photos: Detlef Suckrau

It is a fairly new project for German schools to offer after-lesson catering and activities to pupils as part of the school’s official educational programme. In the first half-term of scholastic year 2005/06, such after-lesson catering and activities were organized for the first time for pupils of grades 5-7. 16 eleventh- to twelfth-form students acted as chaperons for an average of 20 boys and girls between 1.35 and 4 p.m. – every day a team of four of those older students looked after the young ’uns.

In 7th period, pupils were given a meal and some R&R. After that, the upper-form students helped the younger pupils with their homework and with revising topics on their own.

From the second half-term onwards, parents will have to contribute 2.50 € per day toward the cost of the afternoon programme.

Ms Dexer is a teacher of German and French. For reasons of capacity, she will at first teach German only.

Colleagues cordially welcomed her to FSG and wished her good luck in her new post.