My 3 highlights as headmistress

For more than 20 years, I was able to fulfil the wonderful and sometimes demanding job of headmistress. For the first four years, I was in charge of the kindergarten/primary school in Baden. I then took over the management of Höchi Dättwil school for two years. For a further nine years, I managed the school in the Rütihof neighbourhood of Baden, and for the last five years I worked at the Meierhof school, also in Baden.

If you were to ask me about the most exciting stories from these two decades, I wouldn't be able to stop telling them. For this column, I've picked out three anecdotes from my early days as head of the KP comprehensive school and my time at the Rütihof neighbourhood school.

Clear the ring!

In 2002, my colleague and I were sitting at our desks as newly elected head teachers of the kindergarten/primary school level. Our task was to reorganise the management of the nursery school (previously overseen by the school council) and the primary school (previously part of the senior school council).

The question was: How can we achieve a new sense of unity for the whole school? The brilliant idea came from a circus that was performing in the neighbourhood.

At the time, Baden had six primary schools and 16 kindergartens - a large new management unit. We thought about how we two head teachers, the teaching staff and the schoolchildren could develop a new sense of togetherness for the large school. The brilliant idea came to us when a circus was performing near Baden.

We invited all the schoolchildren and their teachers to an internal circus performance. The sight of children and teachers streaming into the circus grounds from all directions was unique and gave us a sense of who we were motivated to tackle our major school management task for.

Dressed up as ringmaster and ringmasteress, we greeted around 100 teachers and 1000 schoolchildren at the start of the performance. The great amazement, the hearty laughter and the shining children's eyes showed us that we had come closer to our goal and that we had succeeded in creating a new sense of togetherness.

School room wanted

From the 2008/09 school year, I was headmistress of the Rütihof site. The construction of a new school building was due to start in the 2015/16 school year. When preparations began on site, it was realised that the ground was not stable enough; piles had to be driven into the ground.

In the middle of the autumn school holidays, I received a call: teaching in all the classrooms of the kindergarten and primary school would not be possible for two to three weeks after the autumn holidays due to excessive noise emissions. I had exactly seven days to find alternative rooms and adapt the lessons: I made enquiries with the town, clubs, private individuals and neighbouring communities, put together a whole-school teaching programme for 14 classes and tried to contact all the teachers, which proved to be no easy task - most of them were still on holiday.

Every child should be able to come to school every day with joy and curiosity in their uniqueness. This vision has always given meaning to my work.

With a great deal of goodwill and flexibility on all sides, the school was finally able to relocate to various replacement rooms: a fire station, a forest hut, a community room, a housing estate, a work yard room, a farm and two museums were «misappropriated».

For the parents and their children, three weeks followed with a varied timetable and lessons in changing environments. For the teachers, the lessons required a great deal of flexibility and a talent for improvisation. All in all, it was a time that will remain an unforgettable memory for everyone involved and left many positive impressions.

Mix naturally

Every child should be able to come to class every day with joy and curiosity in their uniqueness. This vision has always given my work meaning and provided me with lasting motivation.

I took a big step in this direction with my school team when we introduced mixed-age learning - three classes in one department - at Rütihof. This composition is very natural for the children, is a way of life in the family and gives them the opportunity to learn from the older schoolchildren or to support the younger ones in their learning; social skills are promoted to a high degree in this way.

I am grateful to the teachers for taking this new path.

If there are children from three or more year groups in a class, the lessons must be geared towards heterogeneity, i.e. the diversity of the school children. Teamwork with the teaching staff is essential. This was a major challenge for the teachers. Even today, I am infinitely grateful to the teachers involved that they were prepared to go down this new path with me.

The changeover to mixed-age learning was not always easy for parents to understand either. Uncertainties, fears and doubts arose, which was understandable. It took many conversations to overcome these. It was therefore all the more valuable that the group of parents who were still young at the time stood behind us and contributed a great deal to our success.