FROschTOsch

von Amelia Smith (LHS)

Margaret Vaughan wurde in eine Familie geboren, die in die Geschichte von Kington einging. Es war eine wohlhabende junge Dame und sie arbeitete für Königin Elisabeth I in London. Dort hat sie ihren Ehemann getroffen: Sir John Hawkins. Das Paar heiratete, aber ihre Ehe war kurz. Sir John Hawkins starb. Margaret lebte noch 24 Jahre.

Der Schulbau war 1632 beendet. Das Gebäude wurde bis vor kurzem als Schule benutzt. Die Gebäude werden jetzt als Wohnhäuser genutzt.

by Rudi Floren (BvA)

The Facts

Technical progress is still going on. In the future computers will be shrunk to tiny machines, as small as credit cards and they will be very fast.

But what happens,  if no one has enough money to buy these tiny machines? What can we do, if schools haven´t got enough money? A child goes to school from the age of 6 to 18. In these years the pupil will get a lot of contact with computers. But what happens when the pupil works  with school computers that are 6 years old ?

Yes, this child will be disadvantaged compared to pupils who work with the latest technology.

How to avoid that?

To avoid these disadvantages the schools need more money to buy the newest computers. One actualization of computer hardware per year is enough, I think.

There are several ways to get the hardware up to date.

• The first option is to buy whole computers.
• The second is to buy some parts of hardware and put them in.

To do this, schools need a lot of money. But how do they get that?

• One option to get this money is to sell the old whole computers to pupils or their parents.
• The other one is to sell old hardware to 3rd world countries.

My personal opinion?

I think that in the future a school can have many IT equipment, like ‘cloud computing ¹’ from all over the world, so every pupil can complete his homework from home and learn at home and his results should be saved on the school’s server.

cloud computing ¹ = Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing)

by Ailish Eickhorn (Bettine-von-Arnim-Gesamtschule)

In March 1990  a school board for a comprehensive school met for the first time. Our school was opened in August of the same year and called ‘Comprehensive School for the Administrative District of Mettmann’.

In November 1991 they decided to build a new school with an ecological concept and a modern look. In July 1992 the first meeting of the new school board Langenfeld/Hilden was held. In December the school collected toys for children of refugees.

In 1993 the pupils and teachers moved into temporary classrooms at ‘Götscher Weg’. One year later they were visited by pupils from the French partner school for the first time in May.

They began building the new schoolbuilding in September 1994 and had the first literature day in November.

The new name, Bettine-von-Arnim-Gesamtschule, was celebrated together with the great-great-great-granddaughter of Bettine von Arnim in 1995.

In March 1996, the school board decided that our school is to have six classes in each year. This was also the first year the 10th grade had their graduation. And with this also the first sixth form at our school started.

In September 1996, the day came when we finally moved into our new schoolbuilding and in 1997 we had our first graduation in this building.

In 1997 our school took the first steps to also take in students with special needs.

The first students archieved their A-levels in 1999. In this year the school had a charity walk to help refugees from the Kosovo and hosted a convention about schools with challenged students.

In 2000 the sixth form´s theatre club had its first performance and a big celebration on the 10th anniversary of our comprehensive school.

In June 2005 the former Home Secretary, Dr. Otto Schily, visited our school. In this year Mr. Behringer, our first head of school, left and Mrs. Ackers-Weiss took over.