Kaufmannsschule II, Hagen, Germany

Kaufmannsschule II is a vocational school specialised in economy and administration with full-time as well as part-time students which make up a total of about 2,000 students. Part-time students are apprentices in the areas of legal jobs, the retail sector, freight forwarding and office assistants. Full-time students attend the school to acquire a qualification to study (Fachabitur or Abitur).

Two important subject areas in line with the special focus of the school are Business Administration and IT for business applications. The school also offers subjects of general education like Maths, P.E. and German while teaching Business English and Spanish as foreign languages.

The teachers of the school support different kinds of projects to facilitate special interests or talents of students, such as a three-week course in Business English in London for gifted students (they have to earn money for the fees by working in local companies during the summer holidays), visits to different regional companies (professional orientation), a student exchange with a Spanish school or an advertising project in cooperation with the city of Hagen and the EuropeDirectBüro in Hagen.
 
We believe that students can acquire valuable competencies in taking part in different types of projects that very often cannot be measured as it changes the personality or attitudes of the participants. The school has also taken part in one successful EU-funded project and is active on eTwinning. Kaufmannsschule II runs its own content management system based on moodle which is used for teaching and the school has taken part in eTwinning projects since 2007. 

Looking at its pupils it is very striking that the school is very multicultural. In the current school year the school has students from these countries: Germany (85.6%), Turkey (7.5%), Italy (2%), Greece (1.6%), Serbia (0.8%), Bosnia (0.8%), Portugal (0.8%), Poland (0.3%), Croatia (0.2%), Russia (0.2%) and Syria (0.2%). Considering that many students have a German passport the migrational background is even larger taking into account that more students have roots in other countries. The class 11bs2 is a case in point: Whereas all pupils are German their parents and grandparents come from 11 different countries. This figure has risen since the school is teaching refugees who were displaced during the current crises. 

Regarding the religious beliefs among the students are Protestants (33%), Catholics (29.5%), Muslims (22.1%) and Orthodox (1.7%). The rest is distributed among others (3.5%) and no religion (10.2%).