In Berlin, Not Every International School Is Private, and None of Them Skip the Health Exam
Berlin answers the private-school exemption question about as directly as a government office can. Bezirksamt Neukölln's own official parent FAQ for the Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitsdienst (KJGD) states that the Einschulungsuntersuchung is required for every child due to start school, in the FAQ's own words, unabhängig davon, ob das Kind eine staatliche oder eine Privatschule besuchen soll, regardless of whether the child is going to a state school or a private one. Section 55a(6) of Berlin's Schulgesetz (SchulG) creates the underlying duty in the same neutral language, parents must have their child examined by a school doctor before admission, and Section 52 SchulG backs it with a general duty to submit to school health examinations, neither provision singling out any school type. For Berlin's state-recognized Ersatzschulen, Section 100(3) SchulG goes a step further: it folds admission procedures, the exact category Section 55a sits inside, into the same rules public schools already follow. There's a genuinely Berlin-specific wrinkle worth knowing too. Not every school marketed as international is actually private here. Nelson Mandela School and the John F. Kennedy Schule are both public, state-funded schools with international curricula, so for families choosing either one, the private-school question never comes up at all. Families choosing a genuinely independent option, like Berlin Metropolitan School or Berlin Cosmopolitan School, land on the same KJGD invitation list as everyone else, and whatever health paperwork the school itself asks for, Berlin Metropolitan School has its own Health and Emergency Contact form, is separate from and doesn't replace the Gesundheitsamt's exam.
The Official Rule
Families who’ve chosen Berlin’s private or international school scene often did it specifically to step outside the more bureaucratic parts of German public schooling, the Einzugsschule catchment rules, the October registration scramble, the district-by-district variation covered in SettledIn’s other Berlin school guides. It’s a reasonable instinct to wonder whether the Einschulungsuntersuchung belongs on that same list of things you’ve opted out of.
It doesn’t, and Berlin’s own health authorities say so about as plainly as an official document gets. Bezirksamt Neukölln’s published FAQ for parents, maintained by the district’s own Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitsdienst (KJGD), states that every child due to start school is examined “unabhängig davon, ob das Kind eine staatliche oder eine Privatschule besuchen soll,” regardless of whether the child is going to a state school or a private one. That single sentence is the clearest, most direct confirmation available from any Berlin district office.
The underlying legal duty was never written with a school-type carve-out in the first place. Section 55a, Absatz 6 SchulG requires parents to have their child examined by a school doctor before admission, full stop, and Section 52 SchulG backs that with a broader duty for children generally to submit to school health examinations. Neither provision names a school type at all, public, private, or otherwise, which is exactly why there’s no separate, lighter version of the rule for families who’ve chosen differently.
For Berlin’s state-recognized Ersatzschulen, a further mechanism reinforces the same answer. Section 100, Absatz 3 SchulG requires every staatlich anerkannte Ersatzschule to apply, im Rahmen des Section 95 Absatz 1, the same rules public schools follow for Aufnahme, Versetzung und Schulwechsel, admission, promotion, and school transfer. Section 55a, the provision creating the exam duty, is itself titled Aufnahme in die Grundschule. It sits inside precisely the category Section 100(3) says recognized private schools have to mirror. This is a structural argument rather than a paragraph that names the exam by number, so it’s fair to hold it more loosely than a direct cross-reference, but combined with the KJGD’s own blanket guidance above, the practical answer for any recognized Ersatzschule family is unambiguous.
| School category | Examples | Where the exam duty comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Öffentliche Schule (public, including state-run international schools) | Standard Grundschulen, Nelson Mandela School, John F. Kennedy Schule | Section 55a(6) SchulG applies directly; there's no private/public distinction to draw |
| Staatlich anerkannte Ersatzschule | Many Waldorf and Montessori primary schools, Berlin Cosmopolitan School, Berlin Metropolitan School's primary section | Section 100(3) SchulG requires the same admission rules public schools follow, the exact category Section 55a sits inside |
| Any other private primary program | Smaller or newly opened independent primary programs | Bezirksamt Neukölln's own KJGD guidance: the duty applies unabhängig davon, ob das Kind eine staatliche oder eine Privatschule besuchen soll |
Photo by Mary Taylor on Pexels
Not Every “International School” in Berlin Is Actually Private
Families arriving from Munich or Hamburg tend to carry over an assumption that’s usually correct in those cities but genuinely isn’t in Berlin: that a school teaching in English, following an international curriculum, or marketing itself to expat families must be a private operator sitting outside the public system. Berlin has two prominent counterexamples.
Nelson Mandela School is a public, state-funded international school, not a private one, despite following an internationally oriented, bilingual curriculum. The John F. Kennedy Schule (JFKS) is a non-fee-paying school jointly governed by a German Director appointed by the Berlin Senate and a U.S. Principal appointed by the U.S. Embassy, operating under its own dedicated Act of the Berlin Parliament. Neither school sits under anything resembling a private-school statute. Both are public schools in the fullest legal sense, governed by Berlin’s SchulG the same way any neighborhood Grundschule is.
For a family whose child is heading to either school, the private-versus-public question this page exists to answer never actually arises, there’s no private school in the picture to wonder about in the first place. Where the question genuinely matters is for families choosing Berlin’s actually-independent international options, schools like Berlin Cosmopolitan School, a state-recognized Ersatzschule founded in 2004 and run by the nonprofit EBS Europäische Bildungsstiftung, or Berlin Metropolitan School, recognized as a staatlich anerkannte Ersatzschule for its primary and lower-secondary years. Both charge tuition, both operate under the HmbSfTG-style private-school framework rather than directly under SchulG, and both are exactly the kind of school Section 100(3)‘s admission-rules requirement was written to cover.
A School’s Own Paperwork Isn’t the Government’s Exam
Even once a family has confirmed the exam applies to their chosen school, a second, quieter source of confusion tends to show up at enrollment time: private and international schools often ask parents to complete their own health-related paperwork, and it’s easy to assume that submitting it closes the matter.
Berlin Metropolitan School’s own enrollment materials list a document called Health and Emergency Contact among the forms families submit directly to the school. That form exists for the school’s own purposes, knowing about allergies, ongoing medications, and who to contact if something happens during the school day, and it has no legal connection to Section 55a, Section 52 SchulG, or the KJGD appointment covered in this site’s main guide to the exam. Completing it satisfies the school’s own enrollment file. It does nothing toward the Einschulungsuntersuchung itself.
It’s worth noting this isn’t universal across Berlin’s private schools either. Berlin Cosmopolitan School’s own published admissions requirements don’t mention a health form of any kind, just photos, prior school reports, and custody documentation where relevant. So the confusion this section addresses doesn’t apply to every family choosing a private option, it depends on which specific school you’ve chosen and what that school happens to ask for at enrollment. The safest general habit, regardless of which Berlin private or international school a family picks: treat any health-related form the school itself requests as separate from, and additional to, whatever invitation eventually arrives from your assigned school’s district KJGD.
| A school's own enrollment health form | The Einschulungsuntersuchung (ESU) | |
|---|---|---|
| Example | Berlin Metropolitan School's Health and Emergency Contact form | The KJGD appointment covered in this site's main ESU guide |
| Who requires it | The individual school, for its own records | Berlin state law, Section 55a(6) and Section 52 SchulG |
| Who fills it out or conducts it | Parents, for the school's own files | A physician at your Bezirk's KJGD, tied to your child's Einzugsschule |
| Does one satisfy the other? | No, they run on entirely separate tracks | |
Step by Step
- Don't treat your private or international school choice as relevant to the invitation itself Section 55a(6) and Section 52 SchulG create the exam duty without naming any school type, and Bezirksamt Neukölln's own KJGD guidance confirms it applies regardless.
- Check whether your chosen school is actually public before assuming a private-school question applies at all Nelson Mandela School and the John F. Kennedy Schule are both state-funded public schools, not private ones, despite their international curricula.
- Expect the invitation from the KJGD tied to your assigned Einzugsschule's Bezirk, not your chosen school's Bezirk This follows the same rule covered in this site's main guide to the exam.
- Fill out any health form your private or international school requests, but keep it mentally separate A school's own paperwork, like Berlin Metropolitan School's Health and Emergency Contact form, has no bearing on the government exam.
- Ask your school's admissions office directly if you're unsure what they need from you Requirements vary: some schools ask for health-related forms at enrollment, others, like Berlin Cosmopolitan School, don't.
- If in doubt about your family's own SEU status, confirm with your Bezirk's KJGD rather than your school's front office The school can only speak to its own paperwork; only the Gesundheitsamt can confirm the exam itself.
Compliance Note
This page explains the general legal structure connecting Berlin’s private and independent school framework to the Einschulungsuntersuchung requirement, based on current state law and the official and school-published sources cited above, but it is not legal advice. Individual schools may have their own enrollment procedures beyond what’s described here, and if anything about your family’s specific situation seems unclear, confirm directly with your Bezirk’s KJGD or a Fachanwalt für Schulrecht.
FAQ & Common Pitfalls
Why would a Berlin family assume a private or international school is exempt from this exam?
It's a reasonable guess even if it's the wrong one. Choosing a Schule in freier Trägerschaft genuinely does change plenty of things in Berlin: the catchment-school (Einzugsschule) rules that decide where a public-school family enrolls, the curriculum, the fee structure, none of that carries over once a family opts into the private and independent sector. The Einschulungsuntersuchung looks, on the surface, like it should belong to that same list of things a private choice opts you out of. It doesn't, because it was never a school-system rule to begin with. It's a public health measure run by the KJGD inside your assigned school's district Gesundheitsamt, triggered by your child's age and registration, and Bezirksamt Neukölln's own guidance for parents makes the point about as bluntly as an official document ever does.
Section 100 SchulG doesn't mention the exam by name. How confident should I be that it actually applies to Ersatzschulen?
Fairly confident, though it's worth being precise about how the argument works rather than overstating it. Section 100(3) SchulG obligates every staatlich anerkannte Ersatzschule to apply, im Rahmen des Section 95 Absatz 1, the same rules governing Aufnahme, Versetzung und Schulwechsel, admission, promotion, and school transfer, that public schools follow. Section 55a SchulG, the provision that creates the exam duty in its sixth paragraph, is itself titled Aufnahme in die Grundschule, admission to the Grundschule. So the exam duty sits inside exactly the category of rule that Section 100(3) says Ersatzschulen have to mirror. That's a structural argument rather than a named cross-reference the way some other German states write their private-school laws, and Bezirksamt Neukölln's own plain-language FAQ, stating the duty applies regardless of school type, is the more direct confirmation to point to if you want a single source.
Are Nelson Mandela School and the John F. Kennedy Schule really public schools? That's not how they're usually described.
They are, and it's a detail that genuinely surprises a lot of families comparing Berlin to Munich or Hamburg, where an international curriculum almost always signals a private operator. Nelson Mandela School is documented as a public, state-funded international school. The John F. Kennedy Schule is a non-fee-paying school jointly governed by a German Director appointed by the Berlin Senate and a U.S. Principal appointed by the U.S. Embassy, under a dedicated Act of the Berlin Parliament. Neither operates under the HmbSfTG-style private-school framework at all; both sit under Berlin's school law the same way any Grundschule does. For a family choosing either school, there's no private-versus-public question to even resolve, the exam duty applies exactly the way it would at the Grundschule down the street.
Our chosen school already asked us to fill out a health form. Doesn't that cover the same requirement?
No, and this is worth checking carefully rather than assuming. Berlin Metropolitan School's own enrollment materials list a Health and Emergency Contact form among the paperwork families submit directly to the school. That document serves the school's own purposes, knowing about allergies, medications, and who to call in an emergency, and it has no connection to Section 55a or Section 52 SchulG, no connection to the Gesundheitsamt, and no connection to the KJGD appointment covered in this site's main Einschulungsuntersuchung guide. Filling it out doesn't fulfil the exam requirement. Not every private school even asks for something like this at enrollment, Berlin Cosmopolitan School's own published admissions requirements don't mention a health form at all, so the confusion isn't universal, but where a school does request one, treat it as additional paperwork rather than a substitute.
If our assigned Grundschule and our chosen private or international school sit in different Bezirke, which one's KJGD actually examines our child?
The Bezirk tied to your child's Einzugsschule, the catchment school assigned to your registered address, not the Bezirk your chosen private or international school happens to sit in. This follows the same rule covered in this site's main guide to the exam: Service Berlin's own page is explicit that the exam can only be used at the Gesundheitsamt of the district the Einzugsschule belongs to. Choosing a private or international school outside your own Bezirk doesn't change which KJGD sends the invitation or examines your child; that's still determined by your home address's assigned public catchment school, even if your child will never actually attend it.