NEWS on the 2023/24 School Year

UPDATE / SCHOOL YEAR 2022/23 / START OF CLASSES

Dear School Community and Friends,

Our team has finalized the set up for the classes for our new school year. Please have a look under the CLASSES & FEES tab on the top of this page for information on the start dates as well as if the classes offered are taught in person or online. As our teaching team volunteers their time aside their full time jobs and/or studies, the set up for in person or online instructions is their choice according to their schedules. Our schools calendar will be posted under the CALENDAR tab soon. You can find the calendar from Saskatoon Public Schools there already as we plan our classes according to their calendar.

Registration is open and tuition can be paid anytime. Tuition fees are posted under the CLASSES & FEES tab as well. Tuition can be paid in full for the whole year or we can arrange for a schedule for installments if needed. Payment via e-Transfer to germanschoolsaskatoon@gmail.com is very smooth and easy, but cheque or cash (in person only) works as well.

Our current student body as well as families or individuals who contacted me for classes in the past months will receive a survey by email soon. I use the survey to plan for each class in matters of student numbers and kindly ask you to fill out the survey as soon as you see it in your inbox. Thank you!

Please don't hesitate to contact me (CONTACT tab) if you have further questions.

Our team is looking forward to another school year with lots of familiar faces and welcoming new students in our classes.

See you soon,

Kathleen Schroeder-Brass

School Year 2022/23

Dear School Community and Friends, Our 2021/22 School year just came to an end and planning for the upcoming school year will start soon.

SGC's Advent Calendar

 

Have a look at the Saskachtewan German Council's 2021 Advent Calendar! This year's calendar focuses on innovations from Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Winter Break 2021

The last week of German classes will be the week of December 12 and classes will start again the week of January 3!

Please contact us for our Class Offerings for 2021/22

 

START OF SCHOOL YEAR 2020/21

Dear School Community and Friends,

With the recent announcements by our province, followed by the release of a "Parent & Caregiver Handbook" by Saskatoon Public Schools laying out the details for the school start on September 8th, we are all able to have a better understanding how class instruction in school facilities will look like in fall. As follows the link to the "Parent & Caregiver Handbook" for your convenience.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aYlocoXrvPnnQhutunT-E3xD53G0ZOqE/view?usp=sharing

Our team recently met to discuss how the school start for our language school will look like, considering not only that we as well have to follow the guidelines by the provinces health officials and by our landlord (if we are actually able to rent classrooms), but as well to consider, how every teacher feels about returning in a classroom setting and/or offering an online program for their class.

Here are the most important facts for you:

!!! Classes will start the week of MONDAY, Sept 14th and MONDAY, Sept 21st !!!

Please note that the exact start date and time for each class will be determined within the upcoming weeks! All classes will continue as evening classes!

!!! All teachers are currently planning to start their classes in an online format !!! 

This will be a combination of a ZOOM meeting (video call) and instructions/homework etc. on Google Classroom. The details for this set up for each classroom will follow closer to the start date of each class through your teacher or myself. Some teachers prefer to teach an online program this school year and some are open to returning into a classroom, if possible and safe. I will indicate each option below with the classes.

CLASSES & TEACHERS

• Adult Beginner S1 (1st year) / Regina Prost / online or in class / Monday or Tuesday
• Adult Beginner S2 (2nd year) / Polina Lerman / online / Monday or Tuesday
• Adult Beginner S3 (3rd year) / Theresa Kliem / online / Friday
• Adult Intermediate S3 (3rd year) / Franziska Davies / online / Wednesday
• Adult Advanced Conversational / Josephin Dick / online or in class / Wednesday
• High School Credit Class (Gr.9-12) / Josephin Dick / online or in class / Thursday
• DSD 1 (German Language Diploma Class/High School) / Josephin Dick / starting Jan 2021 / Monday or Tuesday
• Level 3 (Gr.6-8) / Polina Lerman / online / Monday or Tuesday
• Level 2 (Gr.3-5) / Brandon Smith / online or in class / Thursday
• Level 1 (K-Gr.2) / Anna Schmidt / online / Thursday

!!! Please note that class offerings are dependent on sufficient enrollment !!!

If some of our classes will return to in class instruction within the upcoming school year, we as well ask our teachers and students to wear face masks, if social distancing isn't possible (e.g. group work), if this is still the recommendation by the provinces health officials. Our teachers as well have the choice to use face shields.

If we return to in class instruction with our classrooms, we will have a waiver in place for our students/families to sign, as we are unable to guarantee 100% that no contraction of the COVID-19 virus will take place.

Class set ups will be finalized over the next weeks prior to our school start. Our school community will be ask to inform us about their preference (online/in class) for instructions.

If you are a new student/family or you are interested in our German language class offerings, we will be asking for your preference (online/in class) as well.

Continue to enjoy this wonderful summer weather and stay healthy and safe!

2020/21 School Year / Update

Dear School Community and Friends,

With the beginning of August our team is starting up the planning for the new school year and I just like to give you a little update on our overall situation.

Our team will discuss plans for in class as well as online class teaching for the upcoming school year. One of the main factors for the different options on running our classes is the uncertainty if rooms will be available for us to rent. Still to this point, we have no word from Saskatoon Public Schools on future rental possibilities in their buildings. I have been in touch with locations like churches, community centers, libraries etc. to check on other possibilities for meeting rooms/classrooms. Most of them are still not clear enough if they would actually rent out to us. One other hurdle for sure are the higher rental rates at such locations and I can not say if negotiations are possible.

If you know of a place/building (not private) that has several meeting rooms for up to 15 people, I would appreciate it if you could let me know and I can get in touch with them. We do need whiteboards and a screen/projector would be great. Internet connection for the teachers would be very helpful as well.

I think I can safely say that all teachers will be back for the new school year. Some of them indicated already if they prefer in class and/or online teaching. Some classrooms might have to move to another day as well, as some teachers are on different schedules. 

We know of course that some of our students/families will be hesitant to return into a classroom, as much as others are looking forward to get back to the weekly classroom routine with their teacher and fellow students. At the same time some students will prefer if their class will be run online. We are well aware that online classes are not suitable for everybody.

Our team will discuss safety guidelines and measurements we have to consider for in class teaching. If we have rental classrooms, we for sure have to follow our landlords safety guidelines first of all.

I will be in touch with our students/families as soon as our team has settled on a basic plan for each classroom.

We sure hope that we will "see" you again in September!!!

Kind Regards,

Kathleen Schroeder-Brass

SARCAN Fundraiser / Drop & Go

Dear Students, Families and Friends!

!!! IMPORTANT !!!

Our school now has a group account with SARCAN Recycling Drop & Go.

We kindly ask you, your family and friends to support our efforts to raise additional funds for our German Language School in Saskatoon. Get the word out for us!

How does it work:

• take your bags and boxes to one of the SARCAN Drop & Go locations
• go to the kiosk and choose "I have an account"
• punch in our group phrase German and Log In
• confirm that you will drop for our school (German Language School Saskatoon)
• punch in how many bags/boxes you have
• it will print out all your tags and a receipt
• put the tags on your bags/boxes 
• put the bags on the turnstile and the boxes on the roller
• Done

!!! Important !!!

Please no glass in bags. Glass has to be dropped in boxes or you can get milk crates at SARCAN to put your glass into.

We will get an email from Sarcan as soon as your bags/boxes have been counted and a cheque is ready for pick up.

If you usually put cans, bottles etc. in your blue recycling bin, please consider collecting them for us in future! If help is needed to get bags and boxes to SARCAN, let us know!

We do appreciate, if you decide to Drop your containers for our school in the future!

!!! THANK YOU !!!

2019/2020 End of School Year

All classes are finished for the 2019/2020 school year!!!

We did run all our adult classes and our high school credit class with online programs since mid March/mid April. THANK YOU to our students, who did take part in this experience!

We are going to put together a summer program package for our Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 classrooms, because we were not able to cater to these classes with an online program during the past months. Please be patient with us, we are working on this!


New School Year 2020/21

Please contact us, if you have any questions on our classes for the upcoming school year. You can as well have a look under the Classes & Fees tab to inform yourself about our offerings starting September 2020.

UPDATE CLASSROOMS and GERMAN LANGUAGE RESOURCES

Dear School Community and Friends,

first of all I hope you and your loved ones are doing well and you all have mostly adjusted to the special circumstances we all have to arrange our life around at this moment. 

Please take your time to read through my Post, as resources will be listed at the end. Thank you!

I like to give you all a short update for the next couple of months according to the information I am provided with as best as I can at this time.

• Rentals for classrooms are cancelled until April 19 and as of right now, I have no additional information received from Saskatoon Public Schools in connection to rental bookings after April 19
• According to the development around COVID-19 and the recent announcements by the Provincial Government, as well as the instructions from the Ministry of Education passed on to the School Boards in our province, I personally doubt that we will be allowed back into our rented classrooms till the end of this school year. Still, of course, I have not yet received any update on our rental situation after April 19 from the Rental Department at Saskatoon Public Schools.
• I have been informed that in keeping with the recent directive from the Government of Saskatchewan to limit the size of public and private gatherings to a maximum of ten people, effective March 26, City Administration will not be approving any outdoor special events scheduled between Friday March 27, 2020 and Sunday May 31, 2020. Therefore our plans for a BBQ Fundraiser at the Gazebo at the Forestry Farm Park on May 23rd are cancelled.

Our classes:

Most of you are aware (maybe as students, parents or grandparents) that Saskatoon Public and Catholic Schools are working on supplementary online teaching options for their elementary and high school students. After the schools staff have been on a break March 23-27, they returned back to work (either from home or their classrooms) on Monday, March 30 to start the process of setting up their classrooms for online teaching/learning and connecting with their students plus families.

Is our school able to simply switch over to online teaching? No, we are not simply able to switch over!

Please keep in mind that our school is "only" running evening classes and no full time year round school program. A good number of our classes combine several circumstances that face us with different problems and might not allow for an online teaching option. Please as well keep in mind that all my teachers have their regular full time jobs and any planning for online teaching or providing you with supplementary German Language support through online resources is done in addition to a regular job. The teachers at Saskatoon Public and Catholic Schools will have their full days to work out their plans for a supplementary online teaching plan compared to my teachers.

Is our school trying to switch classes to online teaching or to provide online resources as a supplement during this time? 

Yes we already have a few classes switched to online teaching or we are just in the process of doing so (your teacher is in touch with you). Please keep in mind, that we will not be able to switch all classes to online teaching, but will for sure try to provide you with online resources to support you in keeping the connection to the German Language. I know that some of my teachers have been sending out helpful suggestions/materials already. For some of our classes a decision hasn't been made yet, if online teaching is possible. Be patient with us and I sure hope that we have all decisions down after the Easter Break.

German Language Resources:

To start with, here are some links, apps you can start to explore and work with:

• NETFLIX / DISNEY+ (Streaming Services)
• If you have Netflix and/or Disney+, go into your options (top left corner, symbol looks like a notepad) and change the Audio and/or Subtitles of your favorite show, documentation, movie etc. to German. Not always possible, but for lots for sure.
• German Radio
• Free download Radio FM app (for your mobile device). You can choose from countries from all over the world. For German radio stations look under Deutschland (over 5000 stations to choose from, but you see the genre played for each station)
• for your laptop etc. copy link  http://www.internetradio-horen.de/
• Websites to check out
• Goethe Institut  https://www.goethe.de/ins/ca/de/index.html
• browse through, lots of useful informtion/material
• you can switch to Eng language at the top right corner
• eLibrary check out the offererings in this virtual library https://www.goethe.de/ins/ca/en/kul/ser/onl.html  
• Pasch-Net  https://www.pasch-net.de/de/index.html
• this is a 100% German Language page, but lots to offer if you are up to the challenge with the language
• German Television
• ARD Mediathek  https://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/
• huge selection throughout all the genres you can think of. Not everything will work, but lots of the shows/movies I tried for kids/families/adults did work and it is sure worth to work your way through
• I probably get back to this with a few more detailed links for kids/teens and adults as soon as I find a bit more time
• Audiobooks (thanks to my teacher Franziska for the tip)
• you can use this on your laptop with  https://www.audible.ca/ or download the app Audible on your mobile device (there are plenty more app offers, maybe worth to check out)
• Kids can listen for free right now, while school is on pause, so just scroll down a bit and then check out their selection in different language (interesting for french immersion students), age ranges and look for Auf Deutsch hören
• don't be shy to check it out as an adult as well !!!
• YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/
• there is plenty to find on YouTube to listen to and/or to watch....lots of useless stuff as well...but just use the SEARCH line and punch in things like
• German kids songs
• German documentary
• German music
• german model railway exhibition
• and whatever other ideas you might have

That's it for right now. Please contact me, if you have any questions.

Thanks for being patient with us during this time. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Schroeder-Brass, Principal