Dortmund (dpa / lnw) – In view of the corona-related overloaded health authorities in many places, problems arise with the examinations of future first graders. Noticeably many such tests have had to fail so far, said Anne Bunte <!––>, NRW Chairwoman of the Doctors of the Public Health Service. The employees of the child and youth health services were instead used for urgent acute tasks in the pandemic area.
The picture is different across the country, explained the expert from Gütersloh. The further development of the entrance tests for boys and girls who are to go to school from summer 2021 will depend on the course of the pandemic in the next few months.
Many health authorities tried first of all to give a medical examination to those children who, in the opinion of parents and daycare centers, have special needs. The aim is to use the time before school enrollment to enable therapies if necessary before the first day of school, said Bunte of the German press agency.
In the investigation of the health services, the development of language, sentence formation or fine motor skills is tested and documented according to a specified procedure. “These statements are very important to us,” emphasized the chairwoman of the NRW primary school association, Christiane Mika <!––>. In addition to your own school diagnostics, you need medical diagnostics to start school. The situation is regrettable. “But we can understand that appointments are suspended in this crisis situation.”
The registration procedures in the elementary schools have already largely run in NRW. Here, too, there was a lot of improvisation because of the pandemic. Mika said that it was not always possible for the school management to have a personal conversation with children and parents. “In this exceptional situation, however, the schools have all found their solutions.”
The examinations for children with special educational needs or for reserved provisions are particularly important. Basically, the test is mandatory for all future first graders until they start school, Mika explained.
Cooperation between primary schools and daycare centers is important and works very well even in the crisis. But: “We are a little worried about the children who don’t go to daycare and don’t go to the pediatrician regularly.” It is extremely difficult to identify these boys and girls with possibly special needs at an early stage without the initial examinations. It shouldn’t be that children fall through the cracks.
According to Bunte and Mika, it is questionable whether all canceled appointments can be made up for later and whether the entrance tests are still successful for everyone with a delay. Anna Bauer, mother of a daughter from the Paderborn district, had also received a short-term rejection of the examination. The health department justified this with the tense situation, she says. “Everything is going well with my daughter. The cancellation is therefore no drama for us. ” However, she believes that some parents may feel insecure without the test.
- Primary school association information
- State Association of Doctors of the Public Health Service NRW
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