We establish a school where all people involved feel comfortable and can develop. All people learn to actively participate in the world and to shape it for the future. The Marille is to open its doors as a state-recognized all-day school in Berlin at the start of the 2023/24 school year. It is a model school for sustainable education. The school will initially offer space for 30 first-graders and will be expanded into an inclusive community school with 13 years of learning.
Local
Germany
Berlin
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
ESF : European Social Fund
Berliner Start-Up Stipendium 2022/23
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Marille e.V.i.G. Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Julia Last name of representative: Westphal Gender: Female Nationality: Germany Function: CEO Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Altensteinstraße 40 Town: Berlin Postal code: 14195 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 160 2325786 E-mail:schulgruendungsteam@gmail.com Website:https://www.marille-schule.de/
Our school foundation group found itself in 2018 during the project "World Learning Journey", which was carried out in the context of the student initiative "Kreidestaub e.V.". Guided by the question of what contemporary and good education can look like, we set out from Germany to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Israel, Malaysia, China and Hong-Kong and gained insights into 65 schools. Since then, we have been working together to create our vision for a future-oriented school, and our team has grown bit by bit. At the moment it consists of eight women, five of whom are or will be teachers.
Now we are founding the Marille School as a state-recognized school in Berlin. The school is expected to open in the summer of 2023 with space for for 15 to 30 first-graders and will be expanded in the years to come to become a community school with 13 years of learning as an open all-day school with after-school care.
The school will create a place where all the people involved can feel comfortable and can can develop. Students learn to actively participate in the world and to shape it for the future and to shape it for the future. Everyday school life at the Marille is characterized by the fact that learning does not take place in classes,
but rather that the students themselves put together their own individual learning individual schedule. The learning opportunities can be very different - such as a letter treasure hunt treasure hunt, a mountain bike tour to Italy, the construction of a pizza oven, or the incubation and hatching and raising chickens - and they can be offered by anyone, including students. by anyone, including students. Support takes place in a variety of formats. All students are part of a group, which offers a social framework and in which no curricular, but rather social learning is social learning is initiated.
Education
Deep Learning
Social Learning
Digital Programm
Motivation
In view of the crisis threatening the existence of ecosystems around the world, the issue of
sustainability plays an important role for the apricot. For the children and young people who learn at the apricot, social and ecological sustainability is a key issue, as it is their future that is at the core of their future. We understand sustainability as the responsible handling of our world and as the fair and humane distribution of resources. Our commitment to sustainability happens on two different levels:
1. The school empowers its students according to an education for sustainable development (ESD) to think and act sustainably.
2. We act sustainably as an institution school. The school and its employees act as role models in their sustainable actions.
The Marille is committed to the guiding principle of the sustainability strategy (cf. Bundesregierung, sustainability strategy) and fulfills its social responsibility for sustainable in all areas of activity. Climate neutrality is the goal of the Marille. The school management, should it not outsource it as a committee, is responsible for the Reviewing compliance with the Marille's sustainability mission statement. The Marille produces an annual sustainability report.
In the procurement of items and in construction measures, attention is paid to sustainability.
sustainability is taken into account. The guiding principle is how to achieve the goal sufficiently well resources as possible, the goal can be achieved sufficiently well. Concrete measures in the sense of sustainability are listed below, which can certainly be supplemented. The Marille purchases only green electricity and operates photovoltaic systems (where possible). In the procurement of furniture and materials, we rely on a sustainable circular economy (second-hand, recycling), biodegradability and thriftiness. Overall, we avoid waste and do not throw things carelessly in the trash. The food offered at the Marille is regional, vegan and organic.
All members of the school community - students and staff - have a mentor with whom they meet at regular intervals. The primary goals of mentoring are to ensure the mentees' well-being at the school and to support them in achieving school goals, both in the short term and in the long term.
Mentors are adults who have been working at the school for at least one year and accordingly have good insight into the operations. They have undergone training for mentoring and are sworn to secrecy. In addition, they undergo supervision every six months (by a trained supervisor). If necessary, the mentor consults a school psychologist. The frequency of the meetings is based on the needs of the mentees. For example, the mentor meeting for first-year students takes place at least once a week. The frequency can then be adjusted individually as the school progresses. At the end of the school years, the meetings are reduced in order to enable students to live, learn and reflect on their own after school. In addition to one-on-one mentoring, students can also choose to meet with mentors in a small group. If issues related to the school structure come up during mentoring, information is shared anonymously with the group or person responsible for school development. Not every mentoring meeting needs to be used for a two-way conversation - for some children it can be useful to play soccer with their mentor and get to know each other better, while and talk about their lives. Students work with the mentor to determine how the meeting should be organized, including joint handicrafts in the group, a trip to the ice cream parlor or playing a game are also possible.
We represent a broad concept of inclusion at the school. We aim to create a place for all people to live and participate together and not to focus exclusively on the needs of individual students. The school is constantly evolving to be and remain inclusive for all.
The circle of inclusive persons does not only refer to students, but we strive to do justice to all persons at the school, including staff, parents and guardians. We assume that the people involved in school life differ with regard to various dimensions of heterogeneity (religion, socio-economic background, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, language, etc.). We want to welcome diverse students into the school community and actively work to ensure that everyone is given what they need. It has been shown time and again, for example, that German schools, by their very nature as often closed and not always reflecting their attitudes, German schools can be a dangerous place for young people whose gender, sexuality and gender, sexuality, and identity are fluid, vulnerable, and beyond traditional norms (bpb 2018). norms unfold (bpb 2018, p. 11). Against the backdrop of an inclusive educational mission this state of affairs is in no way acceptable. In our understanding, an inclusive pedagogy, which focuses on participation, has the task of responding to societal deficits with with compensatory learning opportunities. The pedagogy aimed at within the framework of the Marille pedagogy aims, among other things, to provide young people with a diversity-affirming, human rights-based examination of topics related to gender, amorous and sexual diversity, amorous as well as sexual diversity. We want to understand this work not only as direct educational work, but also to facilitate the discussion through the employment of LSBATIQQP+1 specialists or diversity-conscious assignments, film evenings and readings.
Anyone interested in the "Marille" can offer a service, i.e. employees, volunteers and parents and parents and guardians, external experts and students themselves. For all together there is a defined process to be able to hold a learning offer: First, the the applicant sends the sources of their offer, an abstract and the learning objectives to the Consultation and Organization Room. Then, the person goes through a brief process in which they the person agrees to the school values and is informed about how the school treats each other. are treated with each other at the school. Then, their offer is assigned to the appropriate place in the curriculum and stored as an entry in the digital program, which is then officially offered. offered through the digital program. To allow for a high degree of transparency and fit, as much information as possible is provided, e.g., about rotation, leadership style, wishes for the course participants, necessary prerequisites of the participants or specific interests of the interests of the provider (e.g. "I need absolute punctuality" or "Participants need to be able to "Participants must already be able to play an instrument for the band offer."). The courses can be offered, for example, both as individual courses and as epochs. They can be open, closed, and/or mandatory. Offerings are usually offered for one quarter, they are published prior to the quarter and can then be chosen by the students. students to choose. The offerers are not bound by the school rules and the school law. the school rules and the school law. In addition, there are several open offers throughout the school year, in which help and inspiration for the planning and design of activities are given. and inspiration for planning and designing activities. Also, the can also get support at any time during the offer in the counseling and organization room and digitally. Through a function in the digital program seek appropriate help from other members of the school.
The concept of the apricot was designed in exchange with many different stakeholders. Among others, Prof. Gerhard de Haan (Director of the Institute Futur at the FU Berlin), Ines Boban (Expert for Inclusion), Anke Lagner (Inclusive Education at the TU Dresden), Michael WIldt (Consultant fpr School Development), Margret rasfeld (GEschäftsführerin von Schule im Aufbruch), Max Maendler (#wirfürschule-Hackathon), Getraud Unger (Executive Board HABA) and Clara Wrengler (Prozessbegleiterin für Schulsystementwicklung) were involved in the process. In the last five years, we have networked strongly with people from research and science as well as with various companies and educational actors in and in the region of Berlin.
Over the past five years, we have often moderated and launched various exchange formats in which the various stakeholders have entered into conversation with each other and have worked with us to design the concept of the "Marille". We have included many different voices from the public, research and science, and education in an interdisciplinary process. It was a real benefit for us to receive so much support from so many different levels for the foundation of the "Marille" school.
We believe that a sustainable school where people can feel comfortable and learn well and learn well, a school concept is needed that is clearly different from existing school structures. school structures. The current school landscape in Berlin is essentially homogeneous: Instruction takes place under the guidance of the teacher. The students have few opportunities have little opportunity to take responsibility and make their own decisions. In particular, teachers often take responsibility for their own learning process. and there is no significant progression over the school years and no deliberate leading toward greater assumption of responsibility and independence. The daily routine is often predetermined and the children are to a large extent externally determined. Students who criticize and want to change the existing structures are often perceived as disruptive. Changes and developments either do not take place at all or only in small, defined areas of the system. Learning usually takes place in a fixed room with chairs and tables and in a seated position.
Since the introduction of compulsory education, little has changed in the basic functioning of the school. The reform pedagogical school designs from the beginning of the 20th century are still often discussed today as new and controversial, although in Montessori, Waldorf or Jenaplan schools a very similar everyday school life is often found as in other schools. More recent trends are radically different: Democratic schools, Sudbury schools, the home-schooling movement, and a number of free schools that cannot be directly assigned to an existing current but are similar in their structure and goals postulate a great deal of freedom and a happy and sheltered growing up of the children. With the knowledge of and against the background of this school landscape, the Marille pursues a new idea with an innovative concept. The Marille offers the framework for innovative learning formats.
With the concept of the "Marille" a future-oriented, innovative and humane form of education is designed. At the same time, it represents a scalable concept that can be transferred to other schools. According to the concept of the "Marille", further schools are to be founded and already existing schools will be transformed. The new school concept provides impetus for the existing school landscape and leads to a future in which the school is a safe place for all those where they can learn sustainably, experience community and take on responsibility.
By voluntariness, we mean the freedom to decide, planned or spontaneous, for or against the to engage with a content or to participate in an offer. Here freedom refers both to participation in offerings and to the individual allocation of time. In principle, all students can organize their day (if necessary with support) according to their own ideas. The voluntary nature of the "Marille" is based on two principles: First, the Firstly, the voluntary nature of learning is permitted for all students from the time they enter school. students a dignified and self-determined life during their time at school and self-determined life. On the other hand, it is also intended to give the students the ability to to take charge of their own learning and life, to determine and structure it on their own to structure their learning and life on their own responsibility. Above all, in order to enable the latter, the degree of voluntariness of learning at the school is adapted to the abilities and needs of the individual. The school permanently pursues the goal of having students attend learning opportunities from the beginning so that this becomes natural and normal for them.
We want to act in accordance with the values of the Basic Law as well as the state constitutions and school laws. We take a clear stand against extremism, racism and xenophobia. xenophobia. We are aware that our views are influenced by normative normative conceptions of school and society. We understand that educational systems have evolved historically and are influenced socioculturally and politically. In this respect, just like educational goals, they are context-dependent and never final. final. Against this background, there is a need for continuous reflection on and discussion of of both the educational system and the goals of education and upbringing (cf. Chalk Dust, Political Positioning). We understand the discrimination of people on the basis of race, class, gender and other categories as a structural problem of our society. The staff at the Marille are committed to democratic, non-violent and and discrimination-sensitive learning spaces. We support an inovative school concept to disadvantaged children and young people and ensure a high-quality education.
We have been able to take a big step towards opening up the school in Berlin through the Berlin Start-Up Scholarship (BSS). We were able to find the Montessori Foundation Berlin as a sponsor and submitted an application to the Berlin Senate to found the school. In addition, we tested our school concept in reality for the first time at a so-called "fall camp". We received very valuable feedback, which we directly transferred into our school concept. We also found a possible location for the school foundation. We are currently in detailed talks with the children and youth recreational facility "Villa Pelikan" of the AWO in Marzahn-Hellersdorf in Berlin. We are currently looking for sponsors and donations to help us finance the first school year, 54 percent of which we have already secured. With expenses of € 324,300 in the first school year, we have already been able to secure € 176,200.
