In 2018, the announced closure of several Catholic schools in Hamburg caused a stir. The archdiocese has now laid the foundation stone for a new school building in Barmbek.
Hamburg - After the painful closure of several Catholic schools, the Archdiocese of Hamburg celebrated a joyful day on Thursday: the foundation stone for the 25 million euro Sophien Campus was laid in the Barmbek district. The building of the three-class Catholic preschool and elementary school for 360 children in the Mesterkamp district with an integrated daycare center, cafeteria, auditorium, differentiation rooms, a room of silence, a green classroom and a sports hall should meet the demands of modern pedagogy and didactics, as the Archdiocese of Hamburg announced. The old building, built in 1958/59, was demolished in June 2023. The children of the Sophienschule were temporarily housed in another building.
“Today we are laying the foundation stone for a beautiful new house,” sang boys and girls from the Sophienschule at the location that will one day become their new school. Together with Vicar General Father Sascha-Philipp Geißler, school principal Beatrice Lipschütz and school department head Christopher Haep, they inserted a copper capsule filled with current daily newspapers, school chronicles, coins and pictures into the masonry in the basement in bright sunshine.
On a wall that had already been erected, large pictures showed what the Sophien Campus should look like. “Today we are not only laying the first foundation for reading, writing and arithmetic, we are also laying a foundation for Christian values, for responsibility and charity, for respect and tolerance,” said Lipschütz. “The children will experience formative years here - from crèche to fourth grade.”
According to the information, the total planned investments by the Archdiocese of Hamburg for school development are more than 150 million euros. Of this, around 135 million euros are earmarked for Catholic schools in Hamburg. “We currently assume that we will have implemented a large part of the development measures by the end of 2028,” said Haep.
It was said that this promised school development by the archdiocese is of great importance, especially against the background of the difficult decisions made in 2018 to give up individual school locations in the Hanseatic city. The Catholic school system in the Hanseatic city is now being prepared for the future.
In 2018, the archdiocese's decision to close six schools in the city due to financial difficulties made headlines. The St. Marien Cathedral School, the St. Marien Eulenstraße Catholic School, the Altona Catholic School, the Neugraben Catholic School and the Franz von Assisi School are already closed. The Niels-Stensen-Gymnasium will no longer exist from summer 2025. The Harburg Catholic School is moving into the building and will remain as a preschool and elementary school. The district school branch of this school will be completed next year. From the 2025/26 school year there will only be 15 Catholic schools in Hamburg.
According to the archdiocese, the decision made at the time was based on a detailed analysis of the necessary structural investment needs, the development capability of the school locations and the economic and systemic viability.
The future of the Sophienschule was also uncertain a few years ago. But the Archdiocese of Hamburg received a donation of millions for the school location and the decision was made to build a new building. This laying of the foundation stone is therefore also an important signal that the Archdiocese of Hamburg stands by this school system, said the Vicar General. At the beginning of May, plans for new buildings and extensions on the site of the Catholic Bonifatiusschule Wilhelmsburg will also be presented.
“The archdiocese’s economic consolidation and investments go hand in hand,” explained school department head Haep. “We are working with a sense of proportion and over a long-term period to achieve the goal of a balanced balance sheet while at the same time investing in the future.” But it is also clear: “This can only be achieved in the future with patronage support.”
In total, around 6,200 students are expected to attend a Catholic school in the Hanseatic city in the coming school year. The archdiocese is the largest private school provider in the city. With an average of 57 percent, Catholic students are by far the largest denominational group. 20 percent of all children and young people are Protestant, 23 percent belong to another denomination or no denomination. School fees are socially graded. dpa