Usually the kids start in Kindergarten (école enfantine/jardin d’enfant) when they are around six down to four and a half years old, depending on which community you are living in. In Zürich the kindergarten has been put under the Volkschule and two years of Kindergarten is now compulsory. Geneva has operated with one year of compulsory Kindergarten for several years now.
As mentioned the Kindergarten operates with odd teaching hours, ranging from two and a half hours to three hours in the morning, or two hours both mornings and evenings. That means that around twelve o’clock the Kindergarten takes a break and the kids go home to mum or dad to eat Mittagessen.
Kindergarten in Switzerland is a mixture between pre-school and chreche. The kindergarten-kids are encouraged to attain knowledge through play, which is seen as a good way to foster the child’s ability to express themselves and be creative. The kindergarten is also a good beginning for the kids to spend some hours away from their parents, to introduce them to social behavior and to teach them the basics about how to behave in a classroom environment.
* PRIVATE SCHOOLS
* PUBLIC SCHOOLS
* KINDERGARTEN
* VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS
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* MONTESORRI EDUCATION
* RUDOLF STEINER SCHOOLS
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* BILINGUAL SCHOOLS
* BILINGUAL UPBRINGING
* FOREIGN LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
IN EARLYCHILDHOOD ----------------------------------------------
* Deutsch für fremdsprachige Kinder
* Learning the language of the
country in which you live * Becoming bilingual: How to help
children learn more than one language----------------------------------------------
* ARCHIVE