The Goetheschule Essen is a municipal state Gymnasium of North Rhine-Westphalia founded in 1899, in the Bredeney district of southern Essen. Its alumni include Federal President Gustav Heinemann and industrialist Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. Since 2007 the school has been an IB World School offering the International Baccalaureate as a second qualification alongside the Abitur; the school says it is the only school in the Düsseldorf administrative district with this dual programme. Regular lessons are in German, while IB courses in grades 12-13 are in English, and students can take either the full diploma or individual subjects. The school focuses on multilingualism: English, French, Latin, Spanish and Italian, DELF and DELE language certificates, Erasmus+ projects and Model United Nations conferences. Music (choirs and orchestras), theatre including an English drama group, circus and science are strong; the school holds the title MINT-freundliche Schule (STEM-friendly school). Children arriving from other countries get German as a second language lessons in small groups.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
German, English
Languages taught
French, Latin, Spanish, Italian
About the fees Tuition is free: it is a municipal state Gymnasium of Essen. The international programme is funded by North Rhine-Westphalia, the city of Essen and course fees: in grades 12 and 13 a basic fee of 300 EUR per year (25 EUR per month) and 150 EUR per year for each IB course; no fee is charged for individual IB courses in English, French and Spanish, and examination fees are set by the IB. Students who cannot afford this are promised aid. No year is given for this fee schedule.
Admissions Registration for grade 5 is in February: parents come with the child by appointment through the office and bring the grade 4 half-year report with the school-type recommendation, the birth certificate, the school's form and the forms issued by the primary school; the time of registration does not affect admission. The dual Abitur and IB programme admits students from this and other schools, ideally on entering grade 11 (introductory phase EF); it is explicitly aimed at motivated students from Essen and neighbouring towns. Requirements: German at C1 (native-like level), English at B2, an average grade no worse than 2.5, and at least satisfactory in German, English and Mathematics. Steps: counselling interview with the IB coordinator with a parent, a personal statement in English, an interview with the coordinator and the head, then the application form. Applicants from other schools are considered individually and may be asked to take a standardised language test. The school says families who need an international school for work reasons can find one here; children arriving from abroad get German as a second language lessons.
Stages and year groups Grades 5-13. A Gymnasium following the North Rhine-Westphalia curriculum: grades 5-10, then the introductory phase EF (grade 11) and the qualification phase Q1-Q2 (grades 12-13), final exam the Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife). In Q1-Q2 the school runs the dual Abitur and IB Diploma Programme: students can obtain the full IB Diploma or individual subject certificates, but not the IB Diploma without the Abitur. IB subjects listed on the programme website: German A Literature, English B (SL and HL), French B, Spanish B, Spanish ab initio, History, Geography, Biology, Physics, Mathematics: analysis and approaches (SL and HL), Theory of Knowledge, the Extended Essay and CAS. IB lessons are taught in English. In the middle grades there is a bilingual social science course and elective courses in French and science. The school does not teach Cambridge International or Pearson courses; the external language exams it names are DELF and DELE.
Address Ruschenstraße 1, 45133 Essen
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeThe school is listed in the IB register and runs the Diploma Programme. The IB track runs inside a German Gymnasium: in the upper grades students take the IB Diploma alongside the Abitur.
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Clubs and activities: Hauptorchester (main orchestra) · Vororchester (junior orchestra) · Großer Chor (large choir) · Goethespatzen (children's choir) · No Fear Drama Group · Zirkus AG (circus club) · Karate · Model United Nations AG (Model United Nations club) · Franz. DELF (French DELF exam preparation) · Spanisch DELE (Spanish DELE exam preparation) · KINT (science and technology) · Roboter AG (robotics club) · Garten-AG (gardening club) · Schulsanitätsdienst (school first aiders) · Sporthelfer (sports assistants)
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
The staff page lists 64 teachers by name with their subjects, with trainee teachers listed separately. The IB programme has a coordinator and a deputy coordinator, and each IB subject has a named teacher. At IB authorisation in 2007 the inspectors, the school says, praised the mix of experienced and young teachers.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
Once a month the school hosts an open, anonymous consultation of the Essen school psychology service for students, teachers and parents. There is a crisis management plan, the Lions Quest social skills programme, a mentoring system of older students for younger ones, addiction and crime prevention and a student first aid service. The school motto is 'We talk to each other and look after each other'. The IB programme has written academic integrity and inclusion policies; work is checked for plagiarism.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)82 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data70 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country
Essen, Germany · est. 1899 · State