Early Education in Daycare Centres

Your child’s ability to express themselves, to understand others and to be able to read and write are essential prerequisites for their individual development and for being able to participate in society.

The basics of your child’s language develop in the first years of life in contact with their environment. This includes you as parents, other children and their educators. The stimulating daily routine in the daycare centre offers many opportunities for communication.

Language education in the daycare centre is integrated into everyday life. In the daycare centre children who grow up multilingual come into regular contact with the German language, which is so important for later success in school – the earlier, the better. The language of origin can be maintained at home.

Your child receives a language learning diary at the daycare centre. With the language learning diary, the teachers accompany every child during the entire time they spend in daycare.

The preschool teachers regularly monitor the linguistic progress of each child and document in the language learning diary the individual language development, the ability to communicate and the joy and interest in dealing with books and other media.

The transition from daycare to primary school is an important step in your child’s life. In the daycare centre, the children acquire skills that will be useful in their further education. Your child will be prepared for school during their entire daycare time.

The Berlin education programme describes what your child needs to be able to do in order to get off to a good start in first grade. As parents, you are very important to your children in this phase. However, good preparation for school does not mean that you practice reading, writing and arithmetic with your child beforehand. Rather, it is about supporting your child with patience and care in their independence and self-confidence.

In everyday family life you have numerous opportunities to prepare your child for learning at school. You can find some suggestions for the transition from daycare to primary school in our flyer Ready for school

Two years before compulsory school attendance, it must be determined for all children whether they have the language skills necessary for instruction in German. If the determination of the language level shows that a child has special needs, the child must take part in a targeted language course.

Further information on language proficiency testing and language training

It is possible to postpone school-age children from attending school and to enrol them one year later. A prerequisite for starting school at a later date is that the child’s level of development can be better supported in a daycare centre. Your child will then stay in the daycare centre for another year.