← Back to the rankingSchuldorf Bergstraße
Seeheim Jugenheim, Germany · est. 1954 · State
Illustration · Seeheim Jugenheim
Schuldorf Bergstraße in Seeheim-Jugenheim is a state cooperative comprehensive school (Kooperative Gesamtschule) opened in 1954, on the idea of an American education adviser, as a school village for all school types; the school calls itself the oldest comprehensive school in the Federal Republic. Today about 2200 students attend six branches on one campus: a primary school, a Hauptschule and Realschule branch (grades 5-10), a Gymnasium (grades 5-10, G9) with an upper school leading to the Abitur, and since 2005 the international branch State International School Seeheim-Jugenheim (SISS), the only state international school in Hessen. SISS teaches in English: the primary school (grades 1-4) follows the English National Curriculum with 85% of lessons in English; the secondary school (grades 5-12) runs a Lower Secondary course based on Cambridge programmes, Cambridge IGCSE exams in grades 9-10 and the IB Diploma Programme in grades 11-12. The German branches are free, while families pay a monthly programme fee for the international branch. The school has been a Hessian Europaschule since 2000, a long-standing Umweltschule in Europa and a partner school for elite sport; its students regularly win at Jugend forscht.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $2 593–7 317 a year
229.5–647.7 EUR a month
The year is counted as ten payments: the school does not say how many payments it takes.
Programmes
IB · DP · Cambridge · Lower Secondary, IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
German, English
Languages taught
French, Spanish, Latin, Italian
About the fees The German branches are state schools and tuition there is free. The SISS international branch charges a monthly programme fee (terms for 2026-2027, as of August 2026): grades 1-4 647.7 EUR per month, grades 5-6 357 EUR, grades 7-10 229.5 EUR, grades 11-12 321.30 EUR; the fee is collected 12 months a year, 1 August to 31 July, and rises by 2% every 1 August. It covers teaching assistants and specialists, memberships, administration and projects, in grades 7-10 part of the IGCSE costs and in grades 11-12 part of the IB costs. Sibling discounts are 5% for the second child and 10% for each further child. An annual invoice can be issued on request, for example when an employer pays.
Admissions Admission to the German branches follows Hessian rules (the primary school serves Jugenheim, Balkhausen, Stettbach, Ober-Beerbach and Steigerts). The SISS international branch admits students after an English assessment: primary requires native-speaker English, German is not required, Year 1 takes children who are school-ready under German rules (age cut-off 30 June), and Years 2-4 require reports from the last two years and an assessment session. Besides English, the primary branch admits children of foreign parents living and working in Germany for a period, dual nationals with English as one parent's mother tongue, German children after two years at an international school abroad or before the family moves abroad, and children raised bilingually with English. If places are short, children of highly mobile families take precedence, then residents of the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, Darmstadt, the Starkenburg region and Hessen. Applications are accepted all year, for school starters from 1 November to 1 February; required are the form, passport or birth certificate, two years of reports in English and a photo; processing takes 4-6 weeks. As schooling is compulsory in Germany, families must contact the local primary school and obtain a transfer permit (Gestattungsantrag). SISS Secondary (Years 5-10) admits students with sufficient English, and from Year 7 a second language (German, Spanish or French) is required. The IB Diploma Programme (Year 11) requires Year 10 results at Realschule level with averages no worse than 3.0 and at least C in five core IGCSE subjects, usually A for HL subjects; applicants from other schools must show English (level B1 is not enough), German or Spanish at B1, science and mathematics at IGCSE level, and may sit tests and an interview.
Stages and year groups German branches on the Hessian curriculum: primary school grades 1-4; Hauptschule and Realschule grades 5-10 (Hauptschulabschluss, Realschulabschluss); Gymnasium grades 5-10 (G9) with profile classes (sport, wind band, choir, Europe class) and the upper school E1-Q4 with the Abitur. International branch SISS in English: primary Years 1-4 on the English National Curriculum (85% of lessons in English, German on the Hessian curriculum, some subjects in German); Lower Secondary Years 5-8 (English with the Oxford International course, mathematics and science following Cambridge Lower Secondary objectives, Checkpoint exams, German as first or second language, Spanish or French); Years 9-10 compulsory Cambridge IGCSE preparation with exams in International Mathematics, Co-ordinated Sciences, English First Language, German, French or Spanish, History or Geography, optionally Music, Art and Design or Drama; IGCSE results with the report card count as the German Realschulabschluss or Hauptschulabschluss. Years 11-12: the IB Diploma Programme under Hessian rules: English and German language and literature (Language A), Spanish, German and French as foreign languages (Language B), Geography, Global Politics, History, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (Analysis, Applications), Visual Arts, plus TOK, the Extended Essay, CAS and PE; students with English and German at language A level receive a bilingual diploma.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeCambridge · Lower Secondary, IGCSE · authorised programmeThe school is listed in the IB register and runs the Diploma Programme. The IB and Cambridge programmes are run by the school's international section, State International School Seeheim-Jugenheim; alongside it runs the German curriculum with 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 →CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
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: Lower Secondary (ages 11-14), IGCSE (ages 14-16). Lower Secondary is the middle stage, ages 11 to 14, with the same optional Checkpoint test at the end. IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary 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
Average IB score
33.1 (world average 30.88)
Exam results IB Diploma, May 2025: 32 SISS graduates obtained the diploma, average score 33.1, top results 43 and 42 points (the school equates 42 points with the best Abitur grade of 1.0), and 10 graduates received the bilingual diploma. Average scores by year: 2024 33.0, 2023 34.0, 2022 36.4, 2021 36.8, 2020 34.2. In most subjects average grades were above the world average, for example Physics HL 6.29 against 4.91 worldwide.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Makerspace
Clubs and activities: Rope Skipping · Flag Football AG (flag football club) · Basketball AG (basketball club) · Badminton · Athletics · Mountainbike (mountain biking) · Juniorbotschafter des Europäischen Parlaments (junior ambassadors of the European Parliament) · Schule mit Courage (school against racism) · Chorkids (children's choir) · Hardchor (choir) · Concert Band · Orchestra · Live at SISS · Theater AG (theatre club) · Bollywood Club · Keramik/Tonwerkstatt (ceramics and clay workshop) · AG Französisch (French club) · DELF-Diplom (DELF exam preparation) · DELE-Diplom (DELE exam preparation) · Pen-&-Paper Rollenspiele (tabletop role-playing games) · Veranstaltungstechnik (stage technology) · Jugend forscht MakerLab (youth science maker lab) · Schulsanitäter (school first aiders) · Mediation / Streitschlichtung (mediation and conflict resolution) · Model United Nations
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 names 206 teachers across the school; the German primary school has 25 teachers and a social pedagogue. In the international branch lessons are supported by teaching assistants and science assistants; SISS Secondary has its own coordinators for Lower Secondary, IGCSE, IB, CAS and the Extended Essay.
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
·Counsellornot stated on the website
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school has a school social worker from the district youth service and a UBUS social pedagogue who help students in difficult situations and advise parents. The prevention team handles concerns about addiction, conflicts, bullying, sexualised violence and student-teacher disputes and refers to outside specialists; there are trained student mediators, student first aiders and a safety officer. The school takes part in the Schule mit Courage programme.
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%)84 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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 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