NEWSJUNE 2020 - BERLIN METROPOLITAN SCHOOL

Quarterly
                          News
                                                                          June 2020

Dear BMS Families,
Before we close this academic year, we would like to provide you with an update about BMS and
certain key areas of development.

First and foremost, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and trust over
the past weeks and months. Certainly, this time has not be easy – not for you as parents, not for our
children, and not for our institution itself, representing 200 employees with individual needs and in-
dividual situations.

We are fully aware that we have not been able to fulfill all the expectations you would normally have
with regards to our program, our services, and our support structures. Nevertheless, I want to reco-
gnize the incredible contributions of our team; within a matter of days we were able to transform our
school into using completely different modes of operations and procedures. All staff members – te-
achers, admin staff, as well as educators, have worked together to maintain a high level of quality
throughout the school.

We hope you enjoy reading about our school updates and detailed information on both our current
projects and plans for the coming academic year.

Online Teaching and Learning as a fixed part of the BMS Curriculum
As is so often the case in difficult times, some good aspects about our school came to light as well. From an
institutional perspective, we have been pleased to see that the move towards online-based teaching and learning
was possible and that students and teachers alike enjoyed the dynamic of teaching and learning through online
channels; especially students in our upper secondary school who enjoyed the freedom in their schedules. We
saw an increase in engagement and participation because they have been more actively involved in the timing of
lessons, enjoyed participating in the use of technology, and in general, stepped up in terms of self-organization
and self-management skills. As a whole, our staff also enjoyed the different opportunities distance learning provi-
ded and we have had the impression that a much more tailored, student-focused approach of teaching occurred,
made possible through the use of technology and online platforms.

Based on these observations and the feedback we collected from teachers, students, and parents alike, we
feel very motivated to keep some of the elements of online teaching and learning for the coming academic year.
Especially in the upper Secondary School, where we will build into the schedule distance-learning teaching blocks
as well as more lecture-style lessons to maintain the level of engagement, ownership, and excitement exhibited
by our students.

This time period also showed the need to focus next year much more on the training of IT skills, self-management
and self-organizational skills, especially in the year groups from Grade 5 through to Grade 8, allowing us to build
further on the current level of online learning in those age groups in order to nurture this independence further.
We will also prioritize online teaching skills with our staff during this upcoming school year to use the momentum
and to master the skills of our teaching and support staff.

The experiences over the past weeks and months also triggered lots of discussions in our team in terms of plat-
form choices and online support structures. We are evaluating all the feedback we received and will make sure
that we incorporate some of the learning to further improve our systems, our infrastructure, and also the purpo-
seful use of all the elements we have available currently.

In addition, this crisis period brought to light two more important aspects for our institution. One aspect is the im-
portance of social connections and interaction. The second aspect involves our general crisis management proto-
cols and procedures. We were able to take away key learnings from this experience and will use this information
and important feedback to adjust our future systems of crisis management. During the preparatory workshops in
our back-to-school week, we will emphasize this aspect within our leadership teams in order to prepare for any
future crisis with improved procedures and protocols.

As said, this crisis also gave us a useful lecture on the importance of social interactions and social networks. This
area is of course very important for schools at any time, but as in most cases, we all tend to take everything as
given over time. For our team, this was an important reminder to really emphasize this aspect at the very start
of the coming academic year in order to build strong bonds between students, between students and teachers,
between teachers and parents, and also within our entire teaching body. Teamwork is essential for our individual
and collective success!

Newsletter 06/2020 | © Berlin Metropolitan School                                                                    2

Crisis Management and Covid-19 Testing at BMS
Now that the Senate informed us officially that after summer break we will come back to “normal procedures”
we discussed the need to prepare for a potential second wave of infection. To avoid further negative impacts on
our program and the learning of our students as well as the wellbeing of our entire community, we will collaborate
with a medical services provider to set up a moderate, consistent test procedure for our school. We will start to
implement this during our back-to-school week with the aim to have as much transparency as possible regarding
the status of our school community when everyone is coming back from vacation. We are committed to avoiding
a scenario of uncertainty as we saw after the winter break.

Of course, the participation in this testing routine is voluntary but of course the effectiveness of the testing proce-
dure will increase with every single test, because the true danger of the pandemic is that possible infections are
identified too late which allows the virus to spread undetected.

We discussed these possibilities with the health authorities to make sure we are in line with the official regula-
tions and will work together with them to ensure that our test procedures, the evaluation of the test results, the
communication, and the ensuing actions taken are in line with the health and safety regulations as well as with
the data protection law.

As soon as we are back after the summer break, we will share with you a detailed information about the test sce-
nario, how it works, and what it means for every student, family, and staff member. In line with the test scenario,
we will also keep some of the current regulations in place to minimize the traffic in our school building. We will
inform you about the details as soon as we come back from break.

Adaption of BMS Curriculum and Implementation
of the “International Abitur”
School in general is about success, while success can have a different definition for every single student. Our aim
is to offer best suitable pathways for all our students and to try to support each student at their individual level
of potential on their current developmental pathway. Based on the information we gained with five years of our
Secondary School at full operations and development, we came to the following conclusions:

-    The dual pressure for our students in Grade 9 and Grade 10, due to the MSA and IGCSE Diploma Programs
     occurring simultaneously and with an ambitious selection of IGCSE Courses, creates a lot of stress, which has
     for some students a negative impact on their performance and is partially counterproductive in terms of their
     level of achievement. Equally, we recognize that the majority of students do not use the IGCSE as we thought
     years before and rather stay at BMS to go and complete their IB Diploma.

-    The IB Diploma is one of the most prestigious, stimulating programs available for international education. It
     is also one of the most challenging programs and as such, it is for some of our students too challenging to
     achieve the results they could achieve if they would be enrolled in a different program.

-    We also recognized that even though many BMS students have been enrolled in German universities, the
     recognition of the IBDP in Germany remains a source of uncertainty and pressure concerning DP subject
     selection, which, in the end, may not play out to their advantage in terms of academic results and excellence.

Based on the data and observations we gained over the past 5 years, we came to the following conclusions:

-    Beginning in the coming academic year, we will tailor the IGCSE course selection to fit more to the ability of
     our students in order to allow them to achieve excellent results based on their interests and abilities, rather
     than a system where all students have to sit all IGCSE exams. There will be still some mandatory subjects
     and mandatory academic results we want to see to confirm the ability for the next step of higher education,
     however, the overall pressure will be reduced, and with this, the individual success will increase.

-    With the academic year 2021/22 (for our current grade 9 students), we will implement the “International
     Abitur” as a second pathway for our students to support different levels of academic ability as well as diffe-
     rent needs for further education. This “International Abitur” allows our students to sit their exams in English.
     Both elements are important to us to be able to fulfill our mission statement and to support our students and
     families alike. We submitted our application to the Senate, and it seems that there is a huge commitment to
     support our school with the authorization. We will use the next academic year to run the authorization process
     and to prepare our institution for these additional exams.

Newsletter 06/2020 | © Berlin Metropolitan School                                                                     3

The academic program, the quality of teaching and learning, and the better alignment throughout the school is
our main priority for the next two years. To keep our focus on the implementation of those aspects and to improve
our overall offers and student performance, we established a new role for next year as part of our leadership
team. We hired an Academic Dean who will drive these big projects and will make sure that we take informed
decisions based on data and observations, in order to support our students even further in the future and to align
our academic expectations across the different divisions in our school.

Authorization of our Upper Secondary School as
“Staatliche genehmigte Ersatzschule” and recognition of IB Diploma
as an official school leaving certificate
I would also like to take this opportunity to share some positive news with you. After 2 years of negotiations, we
received the official letter from the Senate in which our Upper Secondary School, Grade 11 and Grade 12 with the
IB Diploma, has been authorized as a “Staatlich genehmigte Ersatzschule”. This is a big achievement because
until now, the Senate has authorized only public schools who offer the IB Diploma. With this step, the IB Diploma
is an officially recognized school-leaving certificate in Berlin!

Building Project Update
Finally, I just want to provide a brief update about building site. It finally looks as though we will finish our building
project this summer. You would have noticed already that the scaffolding has been partially removed, the rooms
are ready, the theater is nearly complete, the new cooling system is now in use, and the company who was
commissioned to design and build the outdoor area will start next week. We are now on the final stretch and will
now prepare all the paperwork to obtain the permit, allowing us to officially use the building from August 2020
onwards. We expect that our welcome assemblies will take place in our new theater and that you can use the Li-
nienstraße Entrance again when returning for the first day of school on August 24th. We are all very excited about
this important step and truly look forward to completing this important project for BMS! We also look forward to
seeing the new student spaces created for learning and collaboration in action!

As you can see, there is still a tremendous amount of action at BMS, even when we have been forced into a crisis
management mode over the past weeks and months, in order to maintain our commitment to improving and
developing our systems, offers, and structures further. On a final note, I want to extend my thanks and congra-
tulations to our parents who have been actively involved in the process that led to BMS becoming officially reco-
gnized as an ECO School! This recognition sends a powerful confirmation to our BMS students who continue to be
heavily engaged in so many projects geared towards the environmental movement and sustainable development!
Thank you so much for all your support and congratulations on this collective achievement!

Newsletter 06/2020 | © Berlin Metropolitan School                                                                        4

In conclusion, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2020 who experienced their final
weeks at BMS under challenging circumstances. I do hope that you all learned at BMS to be strong and creative
and to turn a disadvantage into something positive! For our graduation photo this year, we took a picture of every
student based on the rules of social distancing and formatted a group photo at the end to ensure that you all have
a final memory of your years at BMS. I wish you all the best for your future endeavors and do hope that you will
find your way into a successful, independent life.

I wish you all a wonderful summer break. I do hope that you will have the possibility to recover from the stress this
worldwide pandemic has created for everyone. I wish you a peaceful time with your children and your families
and look forward to welcoming you back on August 24th for another year at BMS, filled with exciting learning
experiences, academic achievement, and lots of community spirit!

With warm regards,

Silke Friedrich

Newsletter 06/2020 | © Berlin Metropolitan School                                                                   5