Realschule an der Josefskirche, Viersen, Germany

Fun and charity on the ice rink

Having a day out to the ice rink in Grefrath, a small city some kilometres away from our school, has been a long tradition in our school life. This event always takes place on the first Tuesday after the school reports for the first term have been handed out.

The students and lots of the teachers really enjoy skating on either the indoor or outdoor area or on the 400 – metre – track. The skating skills of our students reach from ‘total beginner’ to ‘expert’, so some of them need helping hands from their classmates to avoid falling while others almost float over the ice.

This year we added a charity run to this event. The students had looked for sponsors and tried to skate as many laps as possible on the 400 – metre – track. The money that was collected is supposed to be split, one half will be donated for a good cause and the other half will be used for acquisitions for our school. It is up to our students’ council to decide what the money will finally be used for.  Some of the students were very ambitious and skated 50 laps and even more as they knew that those students and those classes who ran the largest number of laps would be awarded extra prizes, a trip to the local swimming pool.   

It was a really successful event as we all had a lot of fun and moreover collected a lot of money because of the charity run. And as we were even lucky with the weather, it can really be said that we enjoyed a wonderful day off the usual daily lessons. 

Open Day at Realschule an der Josefskirche Viersen

 Like every year our school opened its doors for the public at the last weekend of November. So the students and parents of local primary schools have the opportunity to get informed about our school.

Of course our Comenius Group presented the project. The home economics teacher tested some of the recipes from our ebook collection with her students before choosing six of them.

So visitors could find six different tables, each decorated with its flag, some items presenting the respective country and the chosen dish.

These were the dishes we offered: tortilla (Spain), Hortobágyi palacsinta (Hungary), Djuvec rice (Romania), Karask (Estonia), Tabbouleh Kisir (Turkey) and dumplings with plums (Poland).

Due to our colleague Anne and her busy students, staff and students enjoyed the delicious food. The visitors wanted more information about the project so that our students of the project group could tell and show them the places of our partner cities on a large European map.

Serving healthy food is always an attractive and thankful activity.

Sport events

At Realschule an der Josefskirche, there are two sport events coming up that take place every year and most students are already looking forward to them.

The first event takes place in our local sport stadium on Wednesday, June 26^th and is called “Bundesjugendspiele”. It is an athletic competition consisting of four different parts: short distance running, long distance running, long jump and ball throwing. Depending on their ages, the students get points for every performance and when they have collected enough points, they get certificates, either a winner’s certificate or a certificate of honor for the really good students.

At the end of the competition, there are relay races. The best students of each class form teams to find out the best classes of each year. At the end of the day, there are also some fun relay s and for these races, some teachers teams also join in.

The second sport event is our sports day. Our “Bundesjugendspiele” can be seen as a competitive event, but this event is more a fun event. It takes place on Monday, July 15^th which is just a few days before the end of the school year. We offer our students a wide range of different sporty activities. They can play mini golf, go to an adventure playground or the bowling alley, the can do canoeing or go on a bike tour and there are different tournaments.

As the students can choose their mostly preferred sporty activity, they really enjoy this event and it is a very relaxed day for them and for the teachers as well.

Healthy nutrition project

As Realschule an der Josefskirche is a fulltime day school, we have a canteen that offers three different meals from Monday to Friday. Our caterer cares for a balanced diet so that the students and the teachers can eat healthily.

Nevertheless, many students consider crisps or chocolate tastier than the food in our canteen so that there are lots of students who don’t have lunch in our canteen. It is easy to imagine that their nutrition can’t be seen as a healthy one.

Of course our school has the task to convince all the students that a healthy nutrition is very important, not only as they spend a lot of time at school and need a lot of energy to cope with the challenges of school life.

That is why our home economics teacher Mrs Helgers (she is the teacher who made the substantial breakfast at the Comenius meeting at our school) launched a project on healthy living for our younger students. The students learn a lot of different things the cultivation and production of the food and ist ingredients as well as the cooking. Of course it is an important part of the project that the food is finally tasted and eaten. By this project the students can discover lots of different healthy food and they can find out that this food can be very tasty.

As this project deals with the topic of our Comenius project, it is financially supported by the Comenius budget so that there won’t be any costs for the students. 

New from Realschule an der Josefskirche, Viersen

Currently, we’re taking part in a competition sponsored by the German Bank. It is called „Kids to the Olymp” and is about the conveying of culture to children and youngsters at school. The culture foundation of the German Bank has its head office in Berlin, the German capital. For taking part in the competition, you can apply for various projects or for the cultural profile of the school. We chose the last – mentioned option. Therefore, we had to fill in an application form in the internet. This was closed then in mid – February and in May the evaluation will be done by a committee in Berlin. The winner will receive € 5000.

As we’ve got a very committed music teacher and moreover a connection to a local music school, we can offer lots of things in the musical field to our students. Furthermore, an artist from Viersen and a textile designer offer courses. We also have activities on dancing, theatre and film, radio making and many more things.

Please keep your fingers crossed as those many busily working people would deserve the first prize. Summarizing all these things and seeing the broad variety of different activities leaves a lasting impression on me and I’m really proud to be a teacher at this school.

Our Comenius project was also mentioned but it wasn’t the main point as the focus of the Comenius project is on sport and healthy living which is of course important, too.

New from Realschule an der Josefskirche, Viersen

Our school will get a new name soon. Our school’s name is related to a nearby church, but it was closed and remodeled into a columbarium, so we need a new name. Initially, it was planned to rename our school in “am Greefsgarten” but that is also the name of a home for senior citizens in our direct neighborhood.

Now we have to think about a new name. So our headteacher Mr Banniza met the archivist of our town and they worked out some options. We might choose a name with a local background or name the school after an industrialist or a former Jewish citizen. 

Our students are supposed to choose the new name so that we can celebrate the renaming at the ceremony of the 50^th anniversary of our school’s existence next summer. Up to then, we’ll remain your Realschule an der Josefskirche.