New start after the summer vacation: "From the outside it looks pretty normal"

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Welcome by the headmaster at the Hamburg district school Alter Teichweg: "I am really happy that you are all here"

Silke Fokken / DER SPIEGEL

Serkan * was "almost always in the garden" for six weeks, the trip to the family in Lebanon was canceled due to Corona. Merle was out with the Boy Scouts, Dilan fishing, Yasmin playing swing golf. After that, her knee was blue because she got a bat against it, she says. Compassionate murmurs in the 7d at the Hamburg elementary and district school Alter Teichweg, where the 25 pupils exchange ideas in the classroom on the first day of school. As always after the big vacation.

Does school finally go back to normal after the messed up Corona half-year, after the "blatant time that we have behind us", as class teacher Mirjam Kaune says?

It was precisely this hope that the German ministers of education had fueled before the first countries left for the holidays. The new school year should be as normal as possible, if the infection rate allows it. No more learning in small groups, but in a class, with a full timetable, not just on a daily or weekly basis. According to this rough model, Berlin, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein will start school again next week. It is already being implemented in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg.

Mask requirement, but no minimum distance

"From the outside, everyday school life looks pretty normal, but unfortunately it is not," says school principal Björn Lengwenus. Masks are compulsory on the entire school premises, both indoors and outdoors. Just not in class. Students do not have to keep a minimum distance in the classroom, but the principle of fixed groups applies. Years form cohorts. The seventh graders, for example, are allowed to mix, but not with students from other levels.

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Longing view of the soccer field: the schoolyard is divided into zones that the students are not allowed to leave. Each year has its own zone

These are the requirements of the Minister of Education, Ties Rabe, who on the one hand must take fears into account, reduce the risk of infection and, if the worst comes to the worst, make it possible to trace the chains of infection. On the other hand, he wants to grant "the right to education and a carefree childhood". All 16 ministers of education are stuck in this dilemma, but they did not agree on a uniform solution. Everyone puts together their own set of rules.

Rabe presented his on Monday, on Tuesday Lengwenus discussed the implementation with around 250 colleagues. A conference in the schoolyard with a minimum distance, microphone and loudspeaker. "We covered the whole district with sound," says Lengwenus, who caused a sensation on YouTube with a late-night show for his students during the school closings. He has to fulfill Rabe's rules for 1,600 students from grades 1 to 13. A mammoth logistical task.

The result: So that the cohorts do not crowd into hallways at the beginning of the lesson, they start at a slight time delay and use different entrances and toilets. Colored signs mark who can go where. From the time before the summer holidays, creatively designed stickers on stairs and in corridors: "Always keep a fourth grader away." Many fourth graders are about six feet tall.

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The school reminds of the Corona rules with creatively designed stickers on the floor and walls

In the new school year, the school yard is also divided into zones for age groups. Pupils are not allowed to move freely, but are brought to "their zone" by teachers. The break hall is taboo. "It works because the weather is nice," says Lengwenus. And half joking: "If it rains, we have to think again."

Rules upon rules

When class teacher Kaune explains all the rules to 7d, normality seems swept away. The class accepts most of the requirements calmly. Horrified, however, when it was said that she was not allowed to go to the football field during the break as usual.

Another damper: It is questionable whether the ski trip can take place in winter. Anyone who feels sick at school has to leave immediately. Only those who have had neither a fever nor a headache for 48 hours can go back. Rules upon rules. "When is the break?" Asks Elias. Kaune is still going through the new timetable, in which the otherwise popular cross-year inclination courses such as animation or judo are missing, then the time has come.

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Teacher Mirjam Kaune has to teach rules: "The art now is to manage the balancing act between precautionary measures and normality"

The seventh graders stand or sit together in groups, masked. The football friends seem depressed. "For many in the class, football is the most important thing," said Kaune with full understanding. "The children enjoy playing with friends, the exercise, and they learn a lot in the process: social interaction, following rules. When we talk about conflicts, 80 percent of the time it's about football." The teacher fears that the many corona rules could initially result in irritation among the children. "It will jerk a little."

Will everyone stick to the guidelines? Kaune hopes. "But I also understand that the mask is annoying." In the school yard it hangs under the noses of some older students, directly in front of the building groups from the 13th year don't carry any: "We don't have to here." They don't find it logical that the corona rules are stricter in school than outside.

Health protection does not go far enough for an older school assistant. The schools are "poorly prepared". On the other hand, a father from China who takes his daughter to school is satisfied. In his home country, the whole family had to take a fever before class at times. "It's good in Hamburg." A mother also says: "You can't do more than lock yourself in at home. Somehow it has to go on."

This also includes working through the messed up Corona half-year. According to the will of the authority, it will be tested in the coming weeks how big the learning gap in German, math and English is. Lengwenus thinks: "You can do it, but school is so much more than that." The educator regrets that cultural projects are on hold and that learning at his school cannot be as free and progressive as usual because of the rules. "I feel pedagogically transported back to the Stone Age."

What annoys Lengwenus: That the Senate has put so much pressure on families who have traveled to risk areas. If you cannot present a negative test result, you must keep your child in quarantine for 14 days. If that falls during school time, Rabe speaks of truancy. In drastic cases, fines should even be imposed.

"That created a lot of uncertainty," says Lengwenus. Many families could only visit their relatives once a year and would have planned the trips long before Corona. Quite a few have now given up the trips. "I'm afraid that they will hide their vacation and still come to school in order to avoid fines." Some Hamburg schools have reported that parents were only informed about the rules after school started.

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Björn Lengwenus speaking to the new students: "We don't want the schools to be closed again. I'm counting on you"

Silke Fokken / DER SPIEGEL

Lengwenus says his colleagues called parents abroad during the holidays and advised them. He is grateful that they are so committed. Of the ten colleagues who belong to the risk group, only one teacher will stay in the home office. "I need the people here and we have found solutions for them." A teacher, for example, will teach half a class in two rooms at the same time - with the help of a monitor.

Despite all odds: "I'm not a complainer," says Lengwenus. Rather, he is happy that all the students are finally back, that he no longer has to worry about a child slipping away. "That", says the headmaster, "is a gift".

* The names of the children have been changed for reasons of personal rights.