My children
attend Phorminis (KITA) and we are planning on sending them to Phorms Reception and Grundschule & Gymnasium. We are very happy and impressed by the
Kita/Kindergarten and I could go on and on about it! I'd like to break down our experiences into
what we find positive and negative though. Positive
Points: +The quality
of the teachers they have. The teachers
are all highly qualified and talented in different areas that concern
pre-school development. For example
there are trained teachers with specialties in the following: art, music, literacy,
nutrition & health, fitness and naturally English, as spoken by native
speakers. All the teachers are very
attentive, detailed-oriented, KIND, organized, communicative, friendly
(bi-lingual) and just a pleasure to be around.
It's a very comforting feeling knowing that you are leaving your children
with some of the best Hamburg has to offer!!
+ The
director is very organized, co-operative, diligent, and her great work is seen
in the Kita/Kindergarten. She also chose
this exceptional team and her work is seen daily through the organization of
activities and teachers. She may give
the impression of being a bit hard (when working with children), but she is
respected and does her job quite well and the children are quite taken with her. She is also constantly updating us via email
and bulletins of any upcoming events, changes, news, etc. +The
facilities are fantastic. The school has
done the best it can with the space and location they have been given. It's location, as I will point out, is not a
positive point, but the kita has it's own private play area with areas to climb
on and play creatively. The indoor part
is great with an indoor play area, a FANTASTIC art room with many, many
supplies, 2 rooms for the children in kita and in kindergarten. A nice cafeteria for mealtime. The bathrooms are modern, appropriately sized
and tidy. A full kitchen with staff just
for the kita and a very tidy and spacious coat room. When available, the children can use the school's
gym to play indoor games and run around. +Activities! Like I said before it's very well organized
and the children are constantly engaged in new and stimulating activities
ranging from arts and crafts to cooking, excursions throughout the city, visits
by professionals such as firemen and dentists.
The children even do yoga once a
week and have a music class with trained instructors hired by Phorms. The list
goes on and on and I know the team are constantly holding meetings to create
new and exciting activities for the children. +The
parents and community! I have found everyone
at Phorms to be very friendly, outgoing, open-minded and in general a real
pleasure to be around. The bilingual
approach attracts a lot of people with these characteristics and I cannot
complain. As a foreigner, I feel
overwhelmingly welcome and not ashamed to speak English or communicate in my
native tongue. I can't say that in all
of Hamburg, but I can say that here and it's refreshing and almost like being
in a school in my native country. It's perfectly normal to hear English spoken
by the community here (no weird looks you who live in HH know what I'm
talking about!!) and a rainbow of other languages. I think this creates very open-minded and well-rounded
children. Negatives
Points (because no place can be perfect): -The
location. It's not located in an ideal
part of town with lots of lush green trees that are typical in Hamburg. Let's face it, it's located in a business
district with lots of people trotting off to go to work or make appointments,
so the atmosphere around the school is gloomy.
The street is VERY busy because of this it becomes very dangerous having
children around busy streets with people hurrying to get to work or
whatever. The traffic and parking are
horrible and I hope a solution with the city and the school can be found. There needs to be a 30kph zone and proper
crosswalks for children who are dropped off with their parents. A proper parking lot for these parents would
be the best solution on campus. -Outdoor
space and Greenery. Because of its
location the school cannot create more green space with grass and large trees
or more natural fields to play soccer or basketball. Like I said earlier, they do what they can
with the space, but in comparison to some of the other schools around HH, it's
just not as nice. Overall, we
are more than satisfied with Phorms KITA (Phorminis). We really feel part of a great school
community and the teaching is exceptional.
I know my children love going there and the staff (as do most I personally know) and are happy
with everything, so that for me is the most important factor everything else
is just icing on the cake! I would also
like to add that we had a horrible experience at another so-called bilingual
KITA in HH. I was frustrated and dreaded
that our entire KITA and school experience would be so here, but not so
anymore! I can't recommend Phorms enough! read more
