Upper School
Upper school with profile
Video ansehenWe accompany, support and encourage them until they graduate from high school - then they take flight and we release young personalities into life.
Profiles
- Linguistic
- Natural sciences
- Social sciences
- ECO - The new profile
- Arts
In Year 13, students prepare for their Abitur in the week before the autumn holidays.
Centralised Abitur
The examination papers in the written Abitur are set centrally in all subjects. Since the 2020/21 school year, the Abitur examinations have once again been held after 9 grammar schools (G9). We therefore have a three-year upper secondary school again. Year 11 is the introductory phase, years 12 and 13 are the qualification phases. Relevant points for the Abitur are collected here.
Online choice of subjects
You are welcome to use the online subject selection to prepare your profile choice. Prospective sixth form students can simulate a profile choice here according to their individual interests.
This is a good basis for a personal counselling interview with our sixth form coordinator Kerrin Devos. She is a competent contact person for all questions relating to the qualification phase and the Abitur.
Choose your subjects
The curricula of the subjects form the basis for comprehensive preparation for the Lower Saxony centralised Abitur. Within each of the four semesters of the qualification phase, there is a project phase with a different focus. These phases of project work demand and train problem-orientated thinking and action.
Marienau School offers a unique upper school program in Lower Saxony: ECO. It combines the topics of our time and combines them into a separate curriculum.
Open your mind to new ideas - Have the courage to mobilize resources
“Success in education means not only learning languages, mathematics, or history, but also developing identity, the ability to act, and a sense of purpose. It is about awakening curiosity and a desire for knowledge, opening the intellect to new things. It is about empathy, about opening our hearts. And it is about courage, about the ability to mobilize our cognitive, social, and emotional resources.” Andreas Schleicher, OECD Lerncompass 2030, Vorwort, September 2020, p. 6
ECO – a new profile for upper secondary school
The challenges of the coming decade, such as globalization, climate change, and digitalization, encourage us to address the relevant issues in a more focused and contextualized manner in the classroom. Based on this conviction, the Marienau School has developed a focus on economics and ecology for upper secondary education. The ECO profile asks the question “How do we want to live?” and thus looks to the future in a sustainable and binding way.
What ECO offers: Self-organization and personal responsibility on the curriculum
- ECO gives students new ideas. These are suggestions, for example, for the design of future workplaces, a democratic society, and meaningful life plans.
- ECO offers time slots for project work in which students work independently at extracurricular learning locations.
- ECO enables on-site visits, the involvement of experts, and an interdisciplinary approach.
Contact
+49 5851 - 941 33
Subjects of the profile
The subjects geography, politics/economics, and biology are condensed into a genuine profile. The curricula of the state of Lower Saxony form the basis for comprehensive preparation for the Abitur (German university entrance qualification), but ECO goes beyond this and makes use of thematic overlaps. Economic and ecological aspects must be more closely interlinked if we want to prepare our society for the future. This is where the ECO profile of the Marienau School comes in.
Learning together
The students in the ECO profile form a stable learning community for the duration of the qualification phase, i.e., in grades 12 and 13. The teachers also form a grade team for this period. Both increase commitment and reliability in this important phase of school life. Adapting to each other and coming together in the process of learning is an essential component and creates the framework for successful learning — in school and beyond.
Project phases
There is a project phase in each of the four semesters. We make sure that the subjects are combined in a favorable way when planning the timetable. This enables good time and personnel organization during the project phase. There is space and time here for subject-related excursions, for identifying current topics, and for designing your own project.
Topics for this can be found in the school's environment. The links lead to project examples from 2023, in which ECO groups dealt with the wolf in our region or the possible construction of a new bridge across the river lbe.
In semester 12/2, economic topics take center stage with the “Management Information Game” (MIG) business simulation. Our students perform management roles in a computer-based simulation. Experts from companies in the region provide business know-how and serve as the expert audience for the “pitch.” We conduct the MIG in cooperation with the Bildungswerk der Niedersächsischen Wirtschaft (BNI) and the employers' association of northeast Lower Saxony.
Expertise outside school
Extracurricular learning locations offer deep insights into a topic and are a source of inspiration for our own projects. Because we are aware of this and consider it important, we organize our seminar trips around specific themes and travel to regions in Germany undergoing structural change, for example. On site, we can see the implications of change processes in society, the environment, and the economy.
We visit institutions and projects that are particularly relevant to the ECO profile and focus on local, regional, or global initiatives. Destinations for the trips included the Ruhr region and the Central German mining area around Leipzig.
We also regularly invite experts to the Marienau School. Specialist input and the opportunity for intensive dialogue with the experts broaden our horizons and promote a deep understanding of economic, social, and ecological contexts. In 2024, an evening event was held with the chairman of the German Society for the United Nations (DGVN).
