In Germany, vocational assessment has a far reaching history. The compulsory school attendance does not end after 9 years in school. Those who have graduated the Hauptschule (mainstream school, if graduated after 9 years) or Förderschule (special education school) may start an apprenticeship and enroll in a vocational school or they may also enroll in another school in order to receive other school leaving certificates such as the Mittlere Reife (after 10 years). Left out of this discussion are the students graduating the Gymnasium with the Abitur degree after 12 or 13 years, which introduces the students to a University (college). Therefore, the students attending a special education school have to attend a vocational school for another 2 years after they have left us. There, they choose between mainstream vocational schools or special supply in e.g. the Jugendaufbauwerk (http://www.jaw-sh.de/). The educations of the Jugendaufbauwerk visit our students once a week to prepare them. Besides organizing traineeships, their job is to do the vocational assessment.

The Friedrich-Elvers-Schule attends trainings in that field, too. Our headtecher Friedemann Kern just visited a training called school assessment. The attached pdf-file was given to him and we like to publish it, although it is in german.