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Bucher Porträts
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The Marianne Buggenhagen School for the physically handicapped
Learning in the best possible environment
From a distance, the Marianne Buggenhagen School for the physically handicapped in Berlin-Buch has nothing that makes it stand out from its surroundings, it scarcely rises above the Plattenbauten around it. However, if you get closer and actually enter the building you find a jewel.
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The three storey building, which used to be a secondary school, underwent three and a half years of drastic renovation and opened its doors in September 2003. Sparkling clean wide corridors, lifts (US : elevators) running up the outside of the building, automatically opening doors – everything is constructed so that even children with severe physical handicaps can learn here with almost no restrictions.
The origins of the school can be traced back to 1948, according to the headmaster Lothar Borch, who has been at the school for the past 33 years. At that time Buch was already an important hospital site, where lots of children with chronic conditions received long-term treatment. A school was built on the site of the clinic to allow them to receive an education. „Some children virtually grew up in the hospital, since they were not often able to go back home“, says Lothar Borch.
All this has changed. Handicapped children need to grow up as normally as possible in their home environment. To achieve this, Berlin has four schools for the physically handicapped, one at each point of the compass. At present 120 children attend the free full-time school in Berlin-Buch, and they can remain there until they complete their final secondary school examinations. As well as the physically handicapped, the school also has pupils who are autistic and with other learning difficulties, children with ADS (Attention Deficit Syndrome) as well as chronically sick children. In addition, about 75 severely ill children are taught in the HELIOS Klinikum Berlin-Buch. Fifty-four handicapped children are taught as part of the integration of special teachers of the Marianne Buggenhagen School in Pankow control schools.
 In spite of the new school legislation, that is intended to promote integration, the demand for school places is huge, with three children competing for each place. Without a doubt that is due to the outstanding way the school has been furnished and equipped. There is a modern sports hall, a treatment swimming pool which allows the depth of the water to be adjusted, a physiotherapy and a Snoezelen room as well as open air recreational and sporting facilities specially adapted for the handicapped. However, Lothar Borch’s dedicated team are just as important. A total of 94 staff including 3 nurses, 5 physiotherapists as well as ergotherapists, speech therapists and community workers attend to the needs of 250 children. As far as the teachers are concerned, 67% of them have undergone specialist teacher training.
What should be the basis for deciding whether to opt for integration or separate teaching in a specialist teaching center? „That depends entirely on the individual“, says the headmaster. Sometimes there are highly specific reasons. Schools without lifts (US : elevators) cannot accept children in wheelchairs. Also, children with the severest of handicaps cannot be properly looked after in a Regelschule. In Lothar Borch’s opinion „For some of our children, the normal world is simply too difficult and too hostile, they just could not cope.“. For others integration is better, because they learn very early on to see things as they really are. In order to find out which is better in particular cases, Lothar Borch and his colleagues hold detailed consultation sessions with the parents as well as also helping many with personal and family problems.
During the normal school day the teachers have to deal with the routine problems associated with growing children: exploring boundaries, lack of motivation to learn, problems with relationships. The school hours are shorter so that the children have more time to have a rest. The teaching schedule is identical to that of a normal school.
The pupils at the Marianne Buggenhagen School are particularly proud of their sporting successes. They are especially proud of the person who gave her name to their school, the many-times paralympics winner, Marianne Buggenhagen. There are sports teams, the wheelchair hockey team regularly takes part in school competitions and the children check their performance at the annual school sports day.
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At this site you will find portraits of Buch's citizens and institutions that we think you will be interested in. New ones will be dispalyed each month.
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