Pre-course
5th grade

In the pre-course 5th grade, the basics in German (including writing essays) and mathematics are consolidated. In the six-month Gymnasium preparation course in the 6th grade, the basics are also repeated and your child is given the opportunity to close individual gaps - but at a much faster pace.

When should my child attend the pre-course in the 5th grade?
We recommend attending the pre-course already in 5th grade for children who have high potential, but who currently still have certain gaps in specific topics or who still have a lot of uncertainties. In the pre-course, your child will be given enough time and the necessary support to close these gaps in the long term and to develop his or her personal self-confidence and independence. Even though the basics will be repeated in the six-month Gymnasium preparation course in the 6th grade, the pace in this course in 6th grade will be high.
If your child attends the pre-course in the 5th grade, he or she can build up the foundations there and then repeat specific topics in the 1st phase of the Gymnasium preparation course in the 6th grade, where they will be able to go into more detail about individual gaps.
Especially for students who react to stressful situations such as time pressure, pressure to perform or social pressure through many careless mistakes or so-called "blackouts", the pre-course 5th grade has a very relieving effect and often awakens previously suppressed valuable resources.
On the other hand, we also recommend the pre-course 5th grade to pupils who are currently underchallenged in public schools. Exactly then there is the danger that your child is no longer motivated and therefore writes worse and worse grades. In our pre-course we support your child individually, so that we can counteract this underchallenge and your child can gain a valuable advantage for the exam preparation in the 6th grade.

You can find more information here.

In principle, our courses are carefully coordinated and can be easily combined with each other. Depending on the individual situation, different combinations are possible – we will be happy to advise you personally.

Example 1: Preparation courses in 5th and 6th grade
In order to identify and close individual gaps at an early stage, we recommend that some students start our preparation course already in 5th grade (May to summer). From September onwards, students from 6th grade can then attend the six-month course. The two courses are optimally coordinated. This ensures a sustainable Gymnasium preparation, and your child can prepare for the exams comprehensively and without rushing.

Example 2: Six-month preparation course for 6th grade and specific supplementary intensive courses
In principle, we recommend attending the six-month preparation course in 6th grade. If a student needs additional help in specific areas in addition to the preparation course, our intensive courses offer ideal support. In our intensive courses, we cover topics that have not been fully understood yet. We can recap and specifically train those topics (e.g. mathematics, essay writing, etc.) or practice even more exam questions and mock exams during the sports holidays. This gives your child additional self-confidence.

Example 3: Attending a public preparation course at your child's school and specific intensive courses at Gymivorbereitung Zürich
If you are satisfied with your child's public preparation courses, we can supplement those with our intensive courses. This gives your child the chance to have topics explained by a different teacher. In this way, your child receives an independent assessment from our experts.

In the past, we have received feedback that the course days for supplementary courses should not be too long. The Gymnasium preparation time is not only technically and personally demanding, but also highly time-intensive with a time frame of about half a year.

As confirmed by various studies, the time span in which students can focus their attention fully is only between 25 and 30 minutes on average. If the course days last too long, they will be less effective, the students will lose motivation, and their enthusiasm and homework will become an additional burden over the course of half a year.

That is why we intentionally focus on a dynamic teaching structure.

Characteristics of this approach are a high diversity of methods as well as targeted social forms and active support in obtaining interdisciplinary skills such as focus exercises and learning strategies.

Thanks to our many years of experience, we have found that the optimum for a course day during school is 1.5 hours.

However, a shorter course duration does not mean less material – far from it. Our aim is to ensure that the students in our courses can always focus optimally and that the courses are structured as efficiently as possible.

For example, the course hours are used to teach the material. We also want to be able to help to students individually. For instance, essays can be written at home without a teacher and sent to the teacher in advance. The teacher can prepare class with the corrected essays and can thus use the lesson to give comprehensive feedback and tips. They don't "watch" the students while they are writing essays – although this is, of course, an exam situation that we will practice separately. Similarly, your child can do more in-depth exercises at home once the basics have been covered in the course.

If they have any questions, the students can always ask the teacher directly in the chat. The questions will then be discussed in the course or in additional online video conferences and practiced with specific exercises and theory.

This not only promotes your child's independence, but also ensures that the contents of the exam are worked through sustainably and ultimately understood by the students.

In order to be realistic about passing the Gymnasium exam, a certain grade point average should be reached in the canton of Zurich. In primary school, the grade point average for the subjects German and Maths should be at least 5.0. (e.g., 5.0 in German and 5.0 in Maths. Or 4.5 in German and 5.5 in Maths). If your child hasn't reached this grade point average (yet), we recommend that you choose a more intensive preparation program (e.g., start preparation already in 5th grade or attend additional intensive courses).