Vacations that make you smart: the Offenbach German Summer

Every year, around 30 foreign and German-speaking primary school children improve their language skills in a fun way during the first three weeks of the Hessian summer vacations under the motto "Holidays that make you smart".

The language vacations are part of Offenbach's German Summer language development program and take place in the charming countryside of the Spessart at the Wegscheide school hostel in Bad Orb.

The German Summer is a school event run by the local authority. It is a proven, high-quality project to promote the language and personal development of third and fourth graders with a special need for support in the German language.

During the language vacations, the boys and girls aged nine to ten receive daily language and drama lessons in small groups and take part in an exciting, language-oriented leisure program. Not only do they develop a better awareness of the language and a greater motivation to read. They also strengthen their self-confidence and social skills and broaden their horizons.

The three language holiday weeks in the summer are the start of a high-quality, six-month support program in which primary school pupils with special language support needs receive valuable help and impetus for their language and personal development at the start of the fourth school year, which is important for their future school career.

After the summer vacations, around 15 children can continue to "keep track of the language" as "German Summer Detectives" for two afternoons a week in Offenbach while they attend school, as well as consolidating what they have learned in a further language holiday week during the Christmas vacations. The city of Offenbach works together with the ZION family center of the Offenbach Diakoniekirche for the residential project "Deutschsommer-Detektive - Der Sprache auf der Spur".

Overall, the German summer program provides children in the third and fourth grades with continuous, sustainable language support from the beginning of the summer vacations until the half-year report card of the fourth grade, thus helping them to improve their starting opportunities.