Swiss Review 5/2018

Swiss Review / September 2018 / No.5 13 Report MIREILLE GUGGENBÜHLER The windows of the schoolroom are wide open on this sunny morning. The air is still cool and the mood is re- laxed. Here in Room204 of the Spitalacker Primary School in Bern, teachers Danielle Baumann and Marie-Theres Moser are making the final preparations for the lesson prior to the arrival of their pupils aged six to eight. A to- tal of 700 children attend the Spitalacker Primary School. Twenty-four of them – first- and second-year pupils – make up the class of Danielle Baumann andMarie-Theres Moser. It is quite cosy, this small, neat schoolroom. And yet even here the really big changes in the Swiss school system can be seen. The two teachers are teaching together this morning. “We enjoy team-teaching. It gives us more time for the indi- vidual children,” says Marie-Theres Moser. Otherwise, the two teachers work alternately. Both work part-time. Their profile is typical. For 75 percent of all teachers in primary A fundamental change in Swiss schoolrooms The face of Swiss primary schools is changing. New teaching methods are now part of the daily routine. The basic concept of school itself is changing – “skills” rather than knowledge are being increasingly taught. And women are more frequently the ones doing the teaching.