Partner school in Germany - Crossing The Barriers

The Landesbildungszentrum for hearing impaired children is a social institution of Lower Saxony. All in all more than 100 members of staff take care of more than 350 hearing impaired children, adolescents and adults. In addition to that many children are reached by the “Mobiler Dienst”, which is a program in which teachers visit pupils that attempt mainstream schools.
Our School:
We are well appointed. In every classroom you can find the most modern technique. All rooms have a beamer and a smart-board and a computer with Internet connection. Our walls are sound- absorbing and we have floors with carpet. In every classroom there is an FM- equipment and if you need you can use a “Klassenhöranlage”. Of course the lessons take place in small groups.
Special about our school is the own swimming pool. Even before the lessons some teachers and in the afternoon internal and external pupils use it. Our gym and the sport fields are popular, too.  From time to time different kinds of competitions are taking place there. Our schoolyard is, especially since the renovation, a small paradise for the small ones but also for the older ones.
There you can find an area in which you can practise to drive. This is due to the fact that you can do a biking-exam at our school. It is even possible to do the driver's license or mopeds. You can also receive help for the theoretical part of the driving license for cars. This is very useful for the deaf students. Teachers help you to understand questions and tasks in sign language.
The boarding school:
Some of our pupils sleep in the boarding school. There we have six groups: three groups for the younger children and three for the older ones.
After the tiring lessons we have lunch together in our own groups and relax a bit afterwards. After we finished our homework we have several opportunities for free time activities: swimming, football and even we are going to have a dance class soon. Many of us found friends here and we go together in the city for shopping or to eat at Mc Donald's. After dinner at 18.30 each one has time to do what he wants until the educators tell us to stop. The advantage to live in a boarding school is to be able to sleep much longer in the morning. Friday after the school ended we are going home to our families for the weekend.
Our teachers and educators:
Of course it is hard to generalize but we think that the relationship between the pupils, teachers and educators is good and that we trust each other. Of course there are also problems in the everyday life in the school or the boarding school, but mostly we are able to solve them by talking about them. Especially the social workers and the guidance teachers are helping us a lot. We all like to have fun together and we laugh a lot.

Freetime activity:
We asked our classmates about their free time activities and hobbies. Often we heard the answer football. But many also said that they like also other kinds of sports like swimming, basketball, biking, boxing, handball, volleyball, tennis, and riding horses. (Aren't we sporty?) Of course hanging out with our friends and the use of social networks such as facebook is a popular hobby for us, too.