The John F. Kennedy School (JFKS) is a bilingual German-American public school in Berlin, tuition-free, from Entrance Class to grade 12. It was founded in 1960 by the US Army, the West Berlin authorities and parents as the German-American Community School and named after President Kennedy in 1963. The school operates under a special Berlin law on JFKS; strategic matters are decided by the Educational Directorate (Erziehungsdirektorium), where representatives of the Berlin school administration and the US Embassy sit with school, teacher, parent and student representatives. Lessons are taught in German and English: in elementary school each class has two native-speaker teachers, and in grades 7-10 half of instruction is in German and half in English. In grades 11-12 students choose a track: the Abitur (taught almost entirely in German) or the American High School Diploma with AP courses (taught in English); both can be earned. About 1570 students attend, mostly from German and American families; there are more than 160 teachers and the average class size is 23. The school is known for its BERMUN Model United Nations conferences, which bring together more than 850 students twice a year.
Key facts
Programmes
AP · American programme · National programme
Admits from
5 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
German, English
Languages taught
French, Spanish, Latin
Class size
An average of 23 students per class; Entrance Classes have 19 children each.
About the fees Tuition is free: the school states that as a Berlin public school it does not charge tuition. Lunch for Entrance Class and grades 1-6 is also free, paid by the Berlin Senate. Families pay separately for after-school care, the private school bus (a contract with the operator), trips including the two-week grade 8 ski trip to Austria, and private tutors.
Admissions The school admits children with German or US citizenship who have at least one parent who is a German or US citizen, and only with their main residence in Berlin (families moving in must prove Berlin residency before school starts). Children from other countries (third-country applicants) are admitted only by a separate decision of the Educational Directorate, if the child speaks German or English at first-language level and the place is not needed by a German or American applicant; the school says such applications are generally not considered and asks families not to apply. Children of US officials, including US Embassy families, are admitted with priority at any time of year. Entrance Class has 95 places split roughly equally between a German and an American contingent; after priority places they are allocated by lottery, with no language test. Grades 1-12 are filled as space allows, based on report cards and language tests: German applicants take an English test (with an essay in high school) at the level of German JFKS students; American applicants need no German. Applications for 2027-2028 are accepted from 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027, from abroad until 31 March 2027; late applications are not considered. The first year in grades 1-6 and the first semester in grades 7-12 are probationary. Grade 12 of the Abitur track does not accept applicants; grade 12 of the diploma track requires a completed US History course.
Stages and year groups Entrance Class is the year before grade 1 (American Kindergarten, German Vorschule), five classes of 19 children taught in two languages. Elementary school covers grades 1-6, as is usual in Berlin. High school covers grades 7-12: grades 7-10 follow the Berlin curriculum plus the American one, half in German and half in English; in grade 10 students sit the Mittlerer Schulabschluss (MSA) exams. Grades 11-12 have two tracks: the Berlin Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife; taught almost entirely in German except English) and the American High School Diploma with 26 credits over grades 9-12, NEASC-accredited since 1983 (taught in English), with Advanced Placement courses and the option of the AP International Diploma; Abitur students can also earn the American diploma. The school does not offer the IB and does not name any Cambridge courses.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeBerlin's state German-American school: the German Abitur and the American High School Diploma. The school is accredited by NEASC. The College Board AP Course Ledger lists it for the 2025-2026 school year.
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
NEASCNew England Association of Schools and Colleges
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
American programme
The American school programme, with the High School Diploma at the end. It usually comes together with AP courses, which the College Board stands behind, and with an American accreditation - MSA, NEASC or Cognia.
What this means for this school. The diploma is written out by the school itself: the American programme has no common leaving exam, and the content of the senior years is set by the school. Outside checking therefore rests on two things here - the accreditation of the school, and the AP exams if the school runs them.
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
AP scores of 3 and above
90%
Exam results Abitur 2025: 84 graduates, average grade 1,92 (on the German scale where 1,0 is best); 12% achieved 1,0 to 1,2. AP 2025: 89 students took 232 exams in 25 subjects, 90% of exams scored 3 or above and 93% of test takers scored 3 or above on at least one exam. According to the AP programme page, Class of 2026: average AP score 3,9, 65% earned AP Scholar status. The mean SAT score for the 2024-2025 school year was 1259 (652 reading and writing, 608 mathematics).
Where leavers go: Harvard University · Columbia University · University of Chicago · New York University · Northwestern University · University of Oxford · King's College London · University of Edinburgh · ETH Zürich · Free University of Berlin · Humboldt University of Berlin · Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
and others, 20 universities in the school's list in allThe school profile lists universities where graduates of 2021-2025 enrolled in the US, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and other countries. About 95% of graduates go on to further education or training; on average 40% take a gap year before university.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Playground
Clubs and activities: Model UN (BERMUN) · Odyssey of the Mind · Quizbowl · National Honor Society (NHS) · Student Council · Student Ambassadors · Peer Mediators · HS Yearbook · Haywire Literary Magazine · Book Club · Chess · Coding · Math Accelerated · DELF (French exam preparation) · Drama Activities · Music Activities · Sports Activities · Boy Scout Troop 46 · Cub Scout Pack 152 · Girl Scouts · Community Service Activity · GAPP (exchange programme with Texas) · Black Student Union (BSU) · Gay-Straight-Alliance (GSA) · Feminist Initiative · IDEAS Club · D & D · Leadership Seminar · Student Lerncoach Team (SLC) (student learning coaches) · JFK Friendship Center
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
✓Teacher qualifications
✓Number of teachers160
✓Students per teacher or class sizein the key facts above
What the listings show: English teachers hold American certification and teach English at native level, not as a second language; AP teachers are College Board certified.
There are more than 190 staff, including more than 160 German and American teachers. From grade 3 each elementary class has two teachers of different languages. There are special education teachers, school counsellors and school social workers.
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
Student Support Services bring together special education teachers, school counsellors and school social workers; in a crisis the school works with the Berlin service Neuhland and refers families to the district school psychology service SIBUZ for assessment. There are policies on hate speech, weapons and dangerous objects and electronic devices. The school has held the title School without Racism - School with Courage since 2022; each autumn grades 3-12, teachers and parents attend workshops on digital safety, cyberbullying and cybergrooming.
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%)75 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data70 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data65 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
Berlin, Germany · est. 1960 · State