As a former teacher with a Masters degree in Education, I find I am continuously impressed by the…read morelevel of instruction and research-based educational policy at Berlin Metropolitan School. I find the school leadership and administration professional and passionate about delivering excellent education and creating an ethos of kindness and compassion. I also find they are very willing to receive parental feedback and thoughtfully consider ideas brought forward. My children have learned a great deal in the six months they have been at BMS, as well they have developed strong bonds with their teachers and classmates. I highly recommend BMS!

My experience dates back to 2015. At the time, my daughter was 5 years old. She spoke English when…read moreshe arrived in Berlin after having lived in the United States, but she did not speak German yet. Her integration into this school was extremely difficult: she was bullied by classmates to the point of crying, in front of teachers who did not appear to intervene or take the situation seriously. I also felt that the teaching staff was not trained to support English-speaking or bilingual children. There seemed to be very little consideration for children in this situation (and not all of them are necessarily English speakers). We were even called in and told that our daughter should repeat the year. We refused, and in hindsight, I believe this recommendation had more to do with class organization and enrollment management than with her actual academic abilities. The following year, after moving to another school, my daughter actually skipped a grade. This clearly showed that neither her intellectual level nor her maturity had been the issue; the only difficulty was that she had not yet acquired German. My impression is that this school is not truly designed to support bilingual children or children newly arriving in a German-speaking environment, but rather to serve affluent German families who want their children to learn English. Finally, the tuition fees are extremely high and, in my view, do not reflect the quality or the type of activities offered by the school.

They offer courses for children, but also for adults. The yoga course is very interesting and even…read morethe CEO of the company sometimes shows her face. I attended the course on a pay as you go basis, as I was only in Berlin for a short time, but it was fun and cheaper than a gym. I like the children paintings, etc, but the staff in the house, housing three kindergartens and one pre-school, seemed unhappy and stressed. Not sure about that!

This might be a good place for children older than 12 months, but I definitely do NOT recommend…read morethis for younger babies. Since the ratio of care takers to babies was unacceptable for me and my 6 month old at public childcare places, we were happy that Villa Luna had just opened in Berlin. A little less than three weeks later, we decided that we would not bring him to Villa Luna again and looked for an Au Pair instead. I felt sorry for my son and regretted being a working mom during the days at Villa Luna for the first time and luckily for the last time so far. We are now very happy but want to share our experience to save others the pain of reliving them. Trying to keep this within the maximum yelp-length, I will just list some concerns here: - On the first day, I was told that my baby's key caregiver was only starting in two weeks and that he would be with other childcare workers until then. When I voiced my concerns about the timing and maybe better starting later then, I was told not to worry so I tried not to. I did, however, insist that I did not want my baby to go through a lot of crying only to get used to a person who will not even be his key caregiver. - I was told that my baby would not drink from a bottle only to find out days later that they had given him a bottle with a different child's nipple. In addition, they had given him the milk straight from the fridge. (My baby boy was still exclusively breastfed.) Even after two weeks, this place did not even own a milk warmer! - When he was grumpy on another day, I again said he must be hungry. I was then told that this was impossible because he had just eaten. Only after he did not stop crying I asked how much he ate to learn that he had 20 ml (next to nothing). - None of the caregivers could get him to sleep without excessive crying. (All of our nannies could). When I put him to sleep in his assigned place, a spider fell on us one day. I caught the spider in a glass only to find the glass with the spider in the same spot (next to his bed) the next day. Only after I explicitly asked someone to take it away, this was taken care of. - His diaper was changed by childcare workers only once in the first two weeks. - My boy's assigned sleeping place was 3 rooms away from the room with the other children and caregivers. Because I doubted that anyone could hear him waking up this way, I usually sat close to him at first. Only when I explained the problem to the hands-off supervisor, they figured that buying a baby monitor might be a good idea. There was still no baby monitor the last time we visited. - I repeated multiple times that I wanted to be called from work whenever my boy was crying to the point of tears. When I was told to leave the building for one hour the very first time, I came back to hear him crying frantically with tears. No one had called me. I rushed to him but the caregiver even asked me to step back so that he could keep trying to calm him down. - When the key caregiver started, we brought a box of candy to show how happy we were that she joined. When my baby was eating the cardboard box sitting on her lap, she was amused. At some point, I reached over to take a chunk of red cardboard out of his mouth. I know it is unavoidable that babies eat stuff they should not eat. But watching it and laughing about it is a different thing. (This was repeated the next day with sand.) - On the first full day with the key caregiver, I gave the instruction to have my baby sleep no later than 11 am. When the caregiver passed by with him at 11:10am, he cried. I was told that he was probably missing me. Since she seemed stressed, I offered to hold him to calm him down. When I wanted to return him to her at 11:15 and reminded her that he really needed to sleep, I was told that she would be with us in a moment. After standing in the hallway with a sleepy and grumpy baby for 15 minutes, we left. - During a meeting with the supervisor and the key caregiver, the supervisor seemed understanding at first but left 30 minutes into the meeting to see an architect and never returned. - The key nursery worker seemed overwhelmed watching 2 babies. E.g., she opened the door to ask me to hold my son while she was changing the diapers of the other boy. She did not know what to do with mine in the meantime. - One day, I heard my boy screaming loudly. I was told that he fell. After inquiring multiple times how a boy who can neither turn himself nor pull himself into a standing position, could fall, I was told that they had put him into a standing position while they were dressing the other kids. We tried to have him calm down for an hour. Since the caregivers insisted that it could not be from the fall and that he must be getting sick (to explain his bad mood), we left early yet again.