It started on June 9th at 7:00 a.m.: 7 students from the politics course marked polling station 122 in Steglitz, set up voting booths and hung up flags. From 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., our team verified 519 voter credentials and handed out ballots. During the count (see picture) it turned out that not all of them were valid and some contained curiosities. At around 8:00 p.m. we were able to submit the final result and were pleased with the mathematically perfect results. Many thanks to the volunteers for taking on this position!

On June 4, 2024, the Geography GK's Q2 and the LK Q2 visited the European House in Berlin with Ms Wandtke & Ms Müller. In an inspiring lecture followed by a discussion, Frenchwoman Claire reaffirmed the importance of the EU in securing peace in Europe, the benefits of the EU for every citizen of an EU country and the importance of a democratic process in decision-making within the EU. She made it clear that voting in the European elections on 9 June 2024 will determine the future political direction of the European Parliament and that every voter should be aware of this responsibility. The pupils were later able to answer the questions in the Wahl-O-Mat and take a stand in the ‘Experience Europe’ exhibition.

Our call to all: Use your vote on 9 June 2024.

A. Müller & F. Wandtke

From May, 2  to May, 31, 2024 the interactive poster exhibition on the climate crisis was a guest at the NMS P30. The exhibition was created by pupils from the Max Planck School in Kiel with scientific support from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. Many pupils from our school from Y7-Y12 were able to visit the exhibition this week, mostly as part of their geography lessons, and activate and consolidate their knowledge of the climate crisis. It became clear to everyone that it is important to act now. Climate protection is a task that concerns us all and that we can only achieve together!   

Climate Action Now- A Race We Must Win.                  

Anke Müller & Department of Geography & the LK Geography Q2

On Monday, 3 June 2020, a group of students from Tallinna Saksa Gümnaasium in Estonia came to class 11b's German lesson to talk to our students about school, everyday life, future prospects, the impact of the war in Ukraine and other topics. The meeting came about spontaneously when some of our teachers visited the Tallinn secondary school in October 2023 as part of an Erasmus+ Workshop on digitalisation.

We will definitely continue to maintain this very nice contact!           

We did it! Class 7a worked for a long time and with great attention to detail to complete the Nelson Mandela exhibition! All 7a- students are very proud of their work- deservedly so! We wrote the texts during our English lessons as part of the topic (auto)biographies. We would like to thank Tara McCarthy (Year 11), who visits our English lessons every Tuesday and patiently supported the students in revising their texts.

The banner, A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, according to the title of Mandela’s autobiography which now is hanging in the foyer and in front of the secretary's office, was painted during our English class as well. You can see patterns which are inspired by the South African Ndebele art, are painted with fabric paint, and then printed with the corresponding letters. Anyone standing in the foyer can now read: A Long Walk To... and then must walk a little way to the corridor leading to the secretary’s office to complete the title...FREEDOM. This walk symbolizes the long way Nelson Mandela had to walk to lead his country to freedom. At the same time, it is representative of the path we travel every day as an international school community.

Finally, I would like to particularly thank Ines Britze and Detlef Wingerath for their huge support in organizing materials, completing and installing the exhibition! Thank you so much!

Enjoy your visit to our exhibition. Stayin front of each exhibit and read what our 7a pupils have written about Mandela's life.

Sincerely,

Constance Velazquez ( homeroom teacher, 7a)

On May 22, the NMS PopChoir presented a short program in front of a sold-out audience in the Kammermusiksaal of the Philharmonie Berlin. As part of the Musische Wochen event, which was organized by the SenBJF, various school ensembles perform every year. We really enjoyed the performance and it was impressive to sing in front of such a large audience for the first time. 

This year's Europa-Kiezfest on May 25, 2024, at Leon-Jessel-Platz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf takes place two weeks before the European elections under the motto "Strengthen Europe – Vote Europe". In this spirit, students from the Nelson Mandela School have engaged on-site with a "Game Lab Europe" focused on democracy and extremism prevention. Using three computer games, they engaged festival visitors in discussions about politics, democratic values, right-wing extremism, and fake news.

In a preparatory workshop, students from class 10c and the WPU art course 11abc of the Nelson Mandela School worked with three free "serious games" which they presented at the Europa-Kiezfest:

1. "Wie entscheidest du?": This game is a playful alternative to the Wahl-O-Mat, helping players make political decisions.
2. "KonterBUNT": In this game, players learn how to counter common prejudices and discriminatory remarks.
3. "Harmony Square": This game raises awareness about various manipulation techniques used in social media.

Festival visitors tried out the games under the guidance of the students, either on their own devices or on school laptops in the school's tiny house. The project was led by Detlef Wingerath, Nati Schneider, and Sainza Fernandez, along with Jakob Saß (historian and game expert). The project is funded by the Democracy Office Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, in collaboration with "Miteinander im Kiez" and the friends of Nelson Mandela School.

We, Lynda Sylvester, Tobias Sadrowski, Kai Linke and Felix Theuner, are currently on our Erasmus+ exchange in Ankara to observe lessons and get to know the school system here. Our hosts have put together an extensive, varied and very interesting program for us, during which we are visiting state and private schools and kindergartens in the city. 

We would like to share our observations and thoughts with you in the Padlet. 

A total of 1838 relay teams took part on May 14th 2024, the first day of this year's TEAM Relay over 5x 5 km through the Tiergarten. Our school sports club SCI-NMS started with 2 teams, SCI-NMS Youth and a team of parents and staff, SCI-NMS. The race started at 6.30 pm in sunny weather. Our youth team had a cool starting number and raced as Team 1. However, despite being born between 2005 and 2009, they surprisingly finished high in all age groups. Carlo and Ben (Abi Q4), Andrii (IB 12), Tizian (10d) and Sebastian (9d) ran fast lap times in the youth team. 
Other students from the Abitur class came to the running course to cheer for their friends. After just 1:54:09 h, they finished in 61st place in the one-day rankings. Jannik ( finished in 8th place, 16:57 min.), Jullian, Marco, Alexis and Lucas (Abi Q2) started in the SCI-NMS team and finished in 51st place after 1:51:46 hours.
Congratulations for the great team races!Let's see who will run in the TEAM Relay next year?  

Jörg Fraikin SCI-NMS

To mark this year's Girls' Day, a delegation of eight ninth-grade students were invited to the Chancellery for a meet & greet with Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz to kick off Girls' Day 2024. 

Ms. Lichtenstein accompanied the group, which was able to explore a variety of offers from the fields of technology, computer science, industry, science and research in an experience course. 
The students Maria Maksimovna Lebedeva, Sophia Göy, Anna Maria Piaz, Fabienne Mendes, Aanya Suhane, Hana Asees, Mufaro Zambezi and Lavinia Baumann presented individual science-based projects to the Chancellor and were able to discuss politics and economy with him in a subsequent round of talks.
The aim of the event was to break down stereotypes in the choice of studies and careers and to promote individual interests and strengths in mint-based areas.

We would like to congratulate our student Mufaro Zambezi, who won the Girls' Day prize awarded by Chancellor Scholz! She received a voucher redeemable for her entire class for a full-day AI workshop.

On April 22 and 23 2024, the Nelson Mandela School was visited by six principals from an Vienna Erasmus+ delegation. The participants attended lessons, took part in the management meeting and talked to colleagues about the current education situation in the countries.

The Austrian principals were particularly interested in the question of independent and self-organized learning, including with our internal Google Workspace, the explicit internal support opportunities for our students and lesson planning.

In total, over 30 principals from Vienna traveled to Berlin and visited six different schools. The exchange was organized by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family and will result in a return visit for our school management (and the other Berlin schools) to Vienna.

Our Erasmus+ activities are picking up speed. From 22.4. to 24.4.2024 four teachers from Ankara visited the secondary school campus of the Nelson Mandela School as part of a job shadowing mobility. During the school day, the Turkish teachers observed lessons in various subjects taught by different colleagues and visited Berlin in the afternoons and evenings. In addition to observing lessons, they were able to talk to Christiane Reiß-Schmidt, the head of the middle school, Fabian Wandtke, who is in the process of setting up a maker space, and Annemieke Akkermans, the head of Media Studies at the school. The focus was on the implementation of digital learning and the associated personal responsibility of the pupils.