School Entrance Examination

All children who are six years old by 30 June of any given year will be required to attend school this summer. These children must be examined by a school doctor before starting school. Since the entire cohort is examined, this is also intended to mitigate the effects of social injustice on children's health in particular.

For this examination, your child will be invited to the health office, either in Frankenberg or Korbach, depending on where you live. As there is only a limited choice of appointments, we ask you to keep the proposed appointment or - if it is not possible otherwise - to cancel it as early as possible so that we can give it to another child and arrange an alternative appointment with you. In case of insufficient German language skills, it is helpful if the family brings along a trusted person to sit in on the conversation.

Note: The examination is not required if a school entrance examination has already been carried out, e.g. in another federal state.

What do I need to bring with me?

In order for the school entrance examination to run smoothly, some documents are needed, which should be brought directly to the appointment:

• yellow child health check-up booklet
• Vaccination certificate
• (if available) further medical documents, therapy reports from speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc.
• The completed medical history form (will be sent to you by invitation or can be downloaded here).

How does the examination proceed?

The examination takes about one and a half hours and is divided into two parts:

1. The first part consists of, among other things, a structured medical history and vaccination status, tests for concentration, comprehension of quantities and eye-hand coordination, as well as a hearing and vision test. Height, weight and blood pressure are measured. This part is carried out by the medical assistants.
2. The second part consists of, among other things, a language test, logical thinking and reasoning tasks, fine and gross motor tests and auditory and visual perception tasks. A physical examination follows. This part is carried out by the school doctor. This is followed by a consultation tailored to your child. Questions can be discussed here such as:

• Which school is better for my child?
• Is it advisable to defer the child to kindergarten or to attend the pre-school class?
• Is there any entitlement to special educational needs?
• Which targeted support is useful for my child?
• Or also: Everything is fine!

Children who are to start school early are not invited until May or June before they are scheduled to start school. Most preschool children, after a short settling-in period, have a lot of fun showing what they can already do.

Dates for school entrance examinations

Anyone who would like to make or reschedule an appointment for a school entrance examination can write an e-mail to the Health Department in Korbach or Frankenberg.