The oldest students in Primary class will start swimming lessons next week.
Please note that Wednesday the 16th, which is the first time, they will meet at the school at 7.50 am and the teacher will escort them.
From then on they will meet at Slotssøbadet every Wednesday at 8.00 am.
They also have PE lessons at the school on Wednesdays so please remember to bring clothes and a towel for this as well.
Every Wednesday the oldest students in Primary class will have Danish dictations.
They will also have English dictations on Thursdays starting next week.
Please remember and bear in mind that the students in Lower Secondary will have English dictation in 5th lesson every Friday beginning next week.
They will also have oral presentations in Danish every Thursday. We already started this week.
All the teachers currently teaching at The Cosmo – International School of Southern Denmark – either have taken or will take the Cambridge Certificate of 
Proficiency in English.
The Certificate of Proficiency in English is Cambridge’s most advanced exam, and it aims at people who use English for professional or study purposes.
The requirements for the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English is that the teacher can use English to advise on, or talk about complex or sensitive issues and understand the finer points of documents, correspondence and reports? At the exam the teachers are tested in reading, writing, use of English, listening and speaking
Read more about the Cambridge Certificates on http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/index.html
Have a look here and see a short summary in English on a review of a novel originally worked with during Danish lessons. Among other things the students were to analyze the novel they had read, and practise their skills in group work. The most important challenge for them was to find out whether the main character actually had developed personally or just gone as they put it – “from realiable to unrealiable?”
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 International Award Forum is less than three months away. All NAAs and all registered delegates have now received the Forum Programme. The Programme is available on the IAA website, but you must sign in to view it.If you have not yet registered, you need to do so on the Forum website as soon as possible. We strongly advise you to book your accommodation when you register. Accommodation is available at The Crowne Plaza, Darling Harbour, sydds.groupres@ihg.com or phone is +61 (2) 9260 3084. You must book your own accommodation.Please contact us at forum@intaward.org if you have any queries.
Each NAA is invited to send two delegates, who would normally be your national chairman and your national director or equivalent. If any NAA wishes to send additional delegates they must seek the approval of the secretary general.
Please note that we are using one point of contact for each NAA, as nominated by you on the Intention to Attend form. We will continue to liaise with you on Forum matters through this one point of contact and ask that person to ensure all of your NAA delegates receive the information. Please help us to make this work.
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