Flexible school enrollment

With flexible school enrollment (in German: “Flexible Schuleingangsphase”), in the first two years of primary education all children of compulsory school age are brought together and taught together as a class in accordance with their individual learning styles and capabilities.

Flexible school enrollment can be completed after one, two, or even three years so that children can cover the material at their own learning pace. Fast developing or highly gifted children can profit greatly in this context, as it makes boredom or stigmatization more easily preventable.

The different states in Germany use different German terms to refer to this stage of school enrollment or placement. These are Anfangsunterricht (instruction for beginners, Saxony), Eingangsphase (introductory phase, Schleswig-Holstein), Eingangsstufe (introductory level, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate), Flexible Eingangsphase (flexible introductory phase, Brandenburg), Flexible Schulanfangsphase (flexible school entry phase, Berlin), Flexibler Schulanfang (flexible school entry, Hesse), Flexible Grundschule (flexible primary school, Bavaria), Schuleingangsphase (school introductory phase, Mecklenburg-Upper-Pomerania, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt), and Schuleingangsphase mit flexibler Verweildauer (school entry phase with flexible duration, Saarland).