Please bear in mind that it is very important for the students to remember to bring their lunch every day. They all have rather long school days, and we see a clear difference in their concentration before and after they have eaten.
They are sometimes able to borrow money from a teacher, if they forget their lunch, but of course they like their own lunches better, which are healthier and more nutrient than the food which they are able to buy at the school.
As we spoke about at the parents-teachers’ meeting we would like to make an automatic link to your mail addresses, when we post news on the blog. This way you will always be updated on news written on the blog.
In order to be able to do so, we need your mail addresses. Please send a note from home or mail it to the headmaster info@thecosmo.dk Simon Mosekjaer or class room teacher Synne Lindum Haagensen synne.lindum@kolding-real.dk with mail addresses on every parent in the family, who would like the automatic link.
Moreover you also have the possibility to subscribe to new posts published on the blog. This subscription is called RSS feeds. Read more about RSS feeds at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS.
After each post on the blog you will find the following text: “You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.” If you press RSS 2.0, a new page will appear, and on this page you need to click on “Abonner på dette feed”; “subscribe to this feed”, in English. Thereafter you will receive all updates from the blog.
Foreigners seeking residency through family reunification may be required to pay 3,000 kroner for a new mandatory Danish language test, reports Kristelig Dagblad newspaper.
The “immigration Test” has been in the works since 2006 with several trial tests and reviews being conducted. It will also be mandatory for all religious preachers seeking residency here.
According to the government’s new budget proposal the final version of the mandatory Danish language test will be ready from early next year.
In addition to testing Danish language skills, the exam will also require a residency applicant to know general facts about Danish culture and society.
Although it has not been ratified by Folketinget – the Danish parliament – the Liberal-Conservative government’s proposal reportedly has the support of Dansk Folkeparti, the Danish People’s Party, which is enough to pass it into law.
Mariann Jelved, Det Radikale Venstres integrationsordfører, spokeswoman for integration for Social Liberal Party, was astounded by the cost of taking the test and said her party did not support such immigration procedures.
“For us it’s more important that Danish residents can live here with their spouses and children”, she said.
Henriette Kjær, the Conservative immigration spokeswoman, said the test was unlikely to be difficult, rather like mastering “tourist Danish”.
But Danish People’s Party MP Jesper Langballe said if the test could cut down the number of immigrants coming to Denmark, then it would serve its purpose.
“We would not be sorry if it meant the number of applicants fell,” he said.
Spouses of Danish citizens who come to Denmark after living in another member country of the European Union will be exempt from taking the test.
The photos used in this feature are file pictures.
The US Women’s Club of Fyn is an English speaking organization that was founded in 1984. Although many of our members are American women, the USWCF is an inclusive group – in the best American tradition.
The US Women’s Club of Fyn seeks to:
• Strengthen contact among Americans living on Fyn (Living on Fyn is not a requirement to join the club)
• Provide information and encouragement to English-speaking newcomers
• Create opportunities for sharing American holidays and traditions
• Reach out internationally by supporting organizations that help children
You can read more about this club at www.uswcf.dk.
Dear parents,
We would like to invite you to a parents–teachers meeting at 19.00 in class room 26 September 8 2009 at the school.
We have enclosed an agenda with some issues that we think we need to talk about:
· Presentation of the teachers
o Subjects
o Curricula
o Benchmark tests and exams
· The blog
o Info for parents
o Photos
· Homework
· School parties
· Trainee services
· Cosmo net
o Social network, where the parents can meet other foreigners with children at the same school or other schools.
o Head speaker at the opening is going to be the newly appointed Ame
rican ambassador, Laurie Fulton.
Best regards,
Simon Mosekjær
If you have children attending classes at Kolding Realskole and you would like them to improve or maintain their English standards, we are able to offer them lessons every afternoon at The Cosmo.
We already have students that join our lessons every day – mostly from 13 pm until 13.45 pm. Here they speak English and are taught in English. The students will be provided with extra teaching material other than what they use at Kolding Realskole, and they might have homework.
Please contact The Head of Department Simon Mosekjaer at 20 52 05 49 for additional information and prices.
A Good Offer
NB. This article is a direct translation from a Danish article and it is by no means an expression of the school’s or the school board’s position
In the corridor, where the international Primary and Lower Secondary of The Cosmo are situated and occupy two classrooms at Kolding Realskole the air is thick with such stories in both English and Danish.
The corridors on Kolding Realskole hum with voices of students who are eager to talk about the events of the summer holiday with their friends, before the teachers arrive.
This school year the school starts with 16 students aged 5-16. Souaad Rochdi is one of the parents, who has chosen to place her children at the international school.
Souaad Rochdi has two children in the age of 12 and 14 years at The Cosmo. It is the fifth school that they attend, as Souaad’s German husband travels a lot in his job. And there is no doubt in their minds that the children should attend an international school in Denmark. Yesterday they started at their second year at The Cosmo.
The children have mostly gone to a German school the places, where we have lived. But we have heard from friends in Denmark that the German schools here in the country have too low academic standards, so that the students almost never have any homework for example. Therefore we chose the international school.
Souaad is happy for the fact that the Cosmo is so small, because it means more focus on each individual student.
As a parent I am happy that the teachers are more in touch with the students’ academic skills. And I am also very satisfied with the level of the teaching, she adds.
The small number of students, makes she worry whether the school will exist long enough for her children to graduate and finished their Lower Secondary education.
Just the other day I spoke to my husband about what we would do it the school has to close. He said that we would find a solution. But if it really closes, we would listen to the children’s wishes. If their wish is to go to an international school, we would move to make that wish come through, she says.
16 students started last Monday at The Cosmo – the International School of Southern Denmark, which is a department of Kolding Realskole.
The school has only managed to get a few students more than last year, which was the first year the school existed.
And the school is far from the targets, which its management announced at the beginning of last school year. Back then the headmaster of Kolding Realskole talked about 40 students the first year.
During the first school year the school has already used about 400,000 Danish crowns of the three yearly deficit guarantees, which two local companies have given The Cosmo.
But the head of department at The Cosmo, Simon Mosekjær, acknowledges that the school’s management was, perhaps, a bit too optimistic when the school opened.
A bit too optimisticThe school needs time to grow, and we were perhaps a bit too optimistic. It requires more work than we thought to get students to the school, and our wish is that we get 30-35 students next year. But before the next school year the school board will probably begin to estimate if it is realistic that The Cosmo can continue without deficits after the first three years, where we have deficit guarantees says Simon Mosekjær.
He thinks that the financial crisis has a large part of the blame for the fact that it is more difficult than expected to get students for The Cosmo.
We have to face the fact that a part of the companies which said that they would support the school do not have the financial means to do so.
Some of the larger companies have phoned and asked what a student costs on a yearly basis at the school, but even so they have not been willing to use money for it. But we continue, because we have deficit guarantees for at least the first three years, says Simon Mosekjær.
It is AH industries and Bjarne Nielsen, who owns Galerie Nielsen and the shipping agency H. Daugaard A/S who each of them supports The Cosmo with a deficit guarantee of one million Danish crowns.
It has not been possible to get a comment from the chairman of the school board of Kolding Realskole, Henning Larsen.
Facts
The Cosmo – International School of Southern Denmark – is a department of Kolding Realskole. The school collaborates with Business Kolding.
All lessons are taught in English, and German and French are taught at all levels.
There are students from Germany, Vietnam, Spain, Iraq, Greece, England and Morocco at the school. The school has 16 students in the age from 5 to 16, who are divided in two classes – Primary and Lower Secondary. Due to the small number of students and the large spread in ages the school works with individual students’ plans, which are adapted to the age of every single student.
The price is between 2,000 and 2,600 Danish crows a month to have a student at The Cosmo.
This feature is a direct translation of a newspaper arctile from Jydske Vestkysten, Wednesday the 19th of August.
NB. This article is a direct translation from a Danish article and it is by no means an expression of the school’s or the school board’s position
The Cosmo – International School of Southern Denmark is closed from the 3rd of July to the 17th of August.
Should you wish to sign up your child for next year, my mobile phone – +45 20 52 05 49 – is open every weekday between 10.00 and 12.00 Am.
Best regards,
Simon Mosekjær
Head of Department
Kolding, the 1st of July 2009
Dear students and Parents,
The summer holiday is approaching, and the teachers and I would like to wish all of you a delightful holiday.
The School is closed from the 3rd of July to the 17th of August. Should you wish to sign up your child for next year, my mobile phone – +45 20 52 05 49 – is open every weekday between 10.00 and 12.00 Am. School begins Monday the 17th of August at 10.00 in classroom 25 – it is in the main building on the first floor.
The first day the students will spend approximately one hour with their classroom teacher, and they will receive their time tables and various pieces of information about the school year, extracurricular activities, a calendar, dates for parents-teachers’ interviews, etc.
It is a tradition at Kolding Realskole that all the students are off at 11.35 each day during the first week as it gives them a gentle start and it also provides the teachers with time for common preparation and various meetings.
Should you wish to require a placement of the After School Recreation Centre, please let me know as soon as possible, as we do not have too many places available.
We have experienced that some of the students are not very good at remembering to give you written messages from the school and return them with your signature afterwards. We will still hand out written messages, but at the same time they will also be available on the blog – where you can always find information about events, outings, extracurricular activities and other things concerning the daily life of the school.
Best holiday wishes,
Simon Mosekjær
Head of Department