The Ukrainian boy is visibly disturbed on his first day of school in a welcome class at the Lessing-Gymnasium in the Berlin district of Wedding.

It's his first day of school in the class that has only existed since Monday.

The 13 students between the ages of eleven and 17 are still far from having really arrived mentally when they are visited on Friday by Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) and Berlin's School Senator Astrid Sabine Busse (SPD).

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

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All but one student speak English, which makes communication and learning German easier, because they all know the Latin alphabet in addition to the Cyrillic alphabet.

In the best Oxford English, Stark-Watzinger asks what the young people miss here, what they particularly like.

They are silent about this.

Busse asks her what she wants: After a long silence, a girl who would like to make music answers.

The senator gives the students balls for different types of ball games.

Three students can already speak English so well that they will probably soon be able to take part in a basic course, and another one was accepted directly into the regular classes in the tenth grade because he had been taking German lessons in the Ukraine since the first grade.

He will only be in the tenth grade for a few more months and then he will move on to high school.

For the welcome class, the timetable consists of a lot of lessons in German as a foreign language, English, sports (together with another eighth class) and music with a teacher who comes from Georgia.

Between integration and identity

But the timetable will still change, says headmaster Michael Wüstenberg, who was unable to set up a welcome class at his school in 2015 because his school was being renovated.

From August onwards, the class will also be regularly scheduled for staffing needs.

There are no Russian or Ukrainian lessons in this class yet, but a few students continue to have online lessons with Ukrainian teachers.

In Berlin, the students should first learn German quickly.

"Because we can only offer German school-leaving qualifications," and that's what the school should be about, says the headmaster.

"Integration into the German school system is very important," affirms Stark-Watzinger.

From their point of view, however, there must be different models of learning, also in the Ukrainian system to strengthen identity, but not without learning German.

The refugees have a very strong desire to return home quickly, she says, referring to the hands-on and pragmatic approach to refugee children in Berlin and other countries.

However, you also have to prepare for the case that they stay longer in Germany, so integration is important.

According to an up-to-date survey, 80 percent of schools in Berlin teach 226 Ukrainian children and young people in welcome classes, and 382 were accepted into regular classes, says Busse, pointing out with a pride that Berlin education politicians rarely have reason to point out that the capital has four Weeks after the beginning of the war was able to create 3000 places in welcome classes.

540 welcome classes with more than 6,000 other refugee children from Syria and Afghanistan must also continue and should not be forgotten, says Busse.