Over three days in February, Audream, an antri-racist mobile Library, visited the Primary with their collection of books. Audream’s book collection consists of books that have BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) protagonists. On the occasion of Black History Month, Audream brought books from their collection featuring Black protagonists. Twelve classes from the Primary, ranging in age from Flex through year 6, had a visit with the library and read through their books. New favorite books were discovered!

Black History Month - Audream, die mobile antirassistische Bibliothek, besucht die Grundschule

 An drei Tagen im Februar besuchte Audream, eine antirassistische mobile Bibliothek, die Grundschule mit ihrer Büchersammlung. Die Büchersammlung von Audream besteht aus Büchern mit BIPOC-Protagonist:innen (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). Anlässlich des Black History Month hat Audream Bücher aus seiner Sammlung mitgebracht, in denen schwarze Protagonist:innen vorkommen. Zwölf Grundschulklassen im Alter von der Flex bis zur 6. Klasse besuchten die Bibliothek und lasen in ihren Büchern. Neue Lieblingsbücher wurden entdeckt!

A number of Italian teachers recently spent time in NMS as part of the European ERASMUS scheme. There were several visitor-'wave' weeks when they were able to 'jobshadow' NMS teachers, in the period from 14.01.2022 until 31.01.2022.
From viewing the video they seemed to have a very interesting time in our school. 

It was an opportunity for mutual insights and exchanges of experience. Maybe some of the NMS staff and students even picked up some Italian. 

Here is the very nice video of the Italian colleagues and their time with us. The video received very positive feedback from school management. 

Expand the video for the best view.

On Friday the 18th of February, our Q4 Politics class held an international video call with the CEO and a software developer of CodeLeap AG. This international company is based in Germany and Vietnam and outsources projects to create modern software for customers in Germany.

According to Statista, by 2026, the global IT outsourcing market will be worth $425 billion. Much goes to India with the largest technical and talent pool in the world, but Vietnam is a growing market; it also has had cultural links to Germany since the DDR years.

Our class covered globalisation and its pros and cons this semester and was presented with a further learning opportunity in the form of a 90-minute interview which enabled us to critically evaluate a real-life example of globalisation.

During the call with Felix Süllwold, the CEO and Managing Director of CodeLeap AG, and Nam Ho, a team leader and software developer, our class had the chance to pose questions and learn more in-depth about the topic of outsourcing in software developing companies. The moderation was made by Nial Akok of our course.

Since 2015, the NMS Yearbook has been a community volunteer effort led by the NMS Friends to capture memories of each school year with photos and texts by staff, students, and parents. The Yearbook is on sale in June at graduation, the school entrances, both libraries, and again at Festival of Nations. NMS Friends Builder Level Members get one for free.

Now we need your help. Please take a few minutes to do the following: 

Print and fill out a Yearbook Consent Form. Please submit these to your class teacher, who will hand in the forms for each class.

For Year 1-11: Collect photos of each student in your class + teacher (if they like) and send together to the yearbook team for your class page. 

Optional: You can design your own page, see guidelines. In both cases: Include the Yearbook Class Checklist so no one is forgotten. 

For Year 12+13: Special instructions will be sent via parent reps and Abi/IB teachers regarding the Year 12+13 Surveys + photos. 

• Deadline for Yearbook Consent forms + photos: March 1, 2022.
• Deadline for self-designed class + LK pages: March 15, 2022.  
• Deadline for Year 12+13 Surveys + Photos: March 15, 2022.

World House Project - Advanced Art Course (12) plans single-family houses for Africa

After the students of the advanced art course had analyzed an extremely successful, functional and sustainable school building by Diébédo Francis Kéré (Burkina Faso), which prepared them for their later cooperation project with the Monterosa School in Ulan Bator, they decided to create architectural plans themselves for randomly chosen areas on the African continent. They were very impressed by Kéré's story, which sounds like a modern fairy tale.  As a seven-year-old, he lived in a West African village without electricity or running water in one of the poorest countries in the world: Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta. His father, chief of Gando, was illiterate, so his son had to go to school to read letters to his father. Later, Kéré did an apprenticeship as a carpenter and learned the basics of traditional building there. In 1985, he received a scholarship, went to Germany, learned the language, took his Matura at night school and studied architecture. Today, about 300 people work in his architectural office in Berlin and abroad. 

Since November 2021, the students of class 10d have been studying the art of West Africa with a focus on the Kingdom of Benin. The demand for the return of the Benin bronzes and many other indigenous artifacts, which are exhibited in the world's major museums with hardly tolerable self-evidence, are discussed as well as the intransparent paths of individual objects are traced and documented. The Nigerian artist David Amaechi Dibiah accompanies us in the project and explains the spiritual characteristics of his culture. All students have been given additional Ibo names that refer to their character attributes. From these they have derived partly fantastic animal figures that possess supernatural powers. These figures were created in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Youth Art School in clay as reliefs and as full sculptures. The students will now write stories about their power figures and finally visit parts of the African collection in the Humboldt Forum. In addition, a joint exhibition visit to the Brücke Museum "Whose Expression? The artists of the Brücke in a colonial context" is planned. 

The school award of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation goes into the next round. Eleven schools from all over Germany presented their media concepts.

On the last school day before the winter holidays, teachers Annemieke Akkermans, Elif Gömüsay, Florentine Baumann, pupil Victoria Lewin and parent representative Beate Zander-Zeidam presented the NMS media concept in an empty school. For this purpose, a website was created in Sites, of which some screenshots can be seen here.

Nelson Mandela School is one of the 11 (out of 60) nominated schools. We will only find out on 25 March whether our media concept is one of the winners.

Press release with information here

Audream ist eine antirassistische Bibliothek, die auch an der NMS-Grundschule Angebote macht und sich an Kinder zwischen 8-.14 Jahren wendet. Es soll eine Lesung von Kindern für Kinder veranstaltet werden. 

Wir haben unglaublich viele Kinder und Jugendbücher, die unsere Perspektiven in den Mittelpunkt stellen und sich gegen Rassismus stellen!

Ab dem 07.02. werden wir uns zwischen 17-19 Uhr3 Wochen vor der Lesung einmal in der Wochezusammensetzen, gemeinsam die Bücherauswählen, das Lesen üben oder einePerformance einstudieren und euch auf dieLesung vorbereiten. Flyer Link hier (Bild anklicken).

Du bist zwischen 8 und 14 Jahre alt und liest gerne? Stehst du gerne auf der Bühne oder möchtest eseinfach mal ausprobieren? Du suchst noch eine Beschäftigung für die Winterferien?
Audream wird am 26. Februar 2022 eine Lesungveranstalten in der Kinder selbst auf der „Bühne“stehen und eines unserer vielen tollen Bücherpräsentieren können.

Wolke 19

Auf der Grundlage von 1000 unbrauchbaren Atemmasken, die das Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf entsorgen wollte, haben die Schüler*innen des Profilkurses Kunst (9. Klasse) eine etwa zwei mal ein Meter große Wolke erstellt, die nun über den Schüler*innen, Lehrkräften und Besuchern der Nelson-Mandela-Schule im Foyer P30 schwebt. Die Wolke wurde aus Drahtgeflecht erstellt und mit den aneinander gebundenen Masken, die eine Länge von über 150 m hatten, umwickelt. Die Lücken wurden mit Watte gefüllt. 

Die Wolke erinnert nun die Schulgemeinschaft an das unverzichtbare Tragen der FFP2-Masken und schwebt einerseits wie ein Damoklesschwert über allen, auf der anderen Seite bewegt sie sich scheinbar auch ganz leicht vom Boden weg und vergrößert nach und nach die Distanz zum Boden. Wir hoffen, dass uns die Pandemie bald in Ruhe lässt! Die Schüler*innen haben folgenden Text zu ihrer Wolke, die durch weitere kleine Wolken-Kunstwerke erweitert wird, geschrieben: 

#LICHTZEIGEN gegen Hass und Ausgrenzung

Die Nelson-Mandela-Schule beteiligt sich an der Aktion #LICHTZEIGEN, die unter anderem von unserem Kooperationspartner Freundeskreis Yad Vashem e.V. initiiert wurde. Wir möchten unsere Schulgemeinde aufrufen, sich gegen das Dunkle in unserer Stadt stark zu machen, in dem ein Aufkleber des Chanukka-Leuchters der Familie Posner sichtbar ins Fenster geklebt und davon ein Foto auf unserem Padlet gepostet wird. 

Als Rahel Posner, die Frau des Kieler Rabbis 1931 ihren Chanukka-Leuchter gut sichtbar auf der Fensterbank Ihrer Wohnung am Sophienblatt platziert, setzt sie ein mutiges Zeichen: gegen Unterdrückung und Ausgrenzung, für Freiheit und Frieden. Sie macht ein Foto von ihrem Leuchter, im Hintergrund sind am Gebäude gegenüber schon die Flaggen der Nazis zu sehen. Foto und Leuchter werden später weltberühmt. Beides gehört zu den Artefakten, die in der Holocaust-Gedenkstätte Bad Vashem in Jerusalem zu sehen sind. 

Am 1. Dezember 2021 konnten wir den Berliner Autor Michael Kumpfmüller an unserer Schule willkommen heißen. Nach einer Begrüßung durch Herrn Dr. Bauer las er vor drei Deutschkursen des 13. Abiturjahrgangs einige Passagen aus seinem Roman „Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens“ aus dem Jahr 2011. Der erfolgreiche, inzwischen in 24 Sprachen übersetzte Roman handelt von Franz Kafkas letztem Lebensjahr und seiner Lebensgefährtin Dora Diamant. Herrn Kumpfmüller gelang es durch seinen lebendigen Vortrag mühelos, das Interesse und die Aufmerksamkeit des Publikums zu wecken.

Information during the Corona period

• The 7 day incidence of Corona in Berlin is at 1800 on Wednesday 26.01.2022. Current Corona information can be found here and here. The Berlin Corona situation infographic is here. 
• Masks are required. Testing is being performed at the appropriate level for the different school levels. This is either 5 or 3 times a week. 

• The GEV/Parents Council has now sent a number of pdf forms by email to parents and guardians. Here they are again.

  • Quarantäne und Testen final
  • RKI_Grafik_Kontakt_allg
  • Testzentren_PCR-Nachtestung mit Öffnungszeiten
  • Testzentren_Senat
  • kommunikationswege_innerhalb_der_schule__senbjf
  • Muster_Formular GA
  • Anleitung Registrierung_Senatstestzentren
• The GEV/Parents Council would like to remind all families to please observe all quarantine rules and regulations if they travel abroad.
• The GEV has requested that drivers please avoid Pfalzburger Strasse on both campuses when dropping off and picking up, even if they are late. The pavement outside the school entrance is not for car manoeuvres!! Please treat the safety of all NMS kids with the same high regard as your own and refrain from driving or reversing at kids. 
• Bicycle thefts have been reported near P23 by parents. Specifically near the bakery.  Please be aware that this happens very quickly, sometimes while people are in the bakery for a short time.
  Read more: Corona & school information