The Salem Blog

From 1934 to 1943, Dr Heinrich Blendinger led Salem in the spirit of its founders. It was due to him that Salem was able to survive with a minimum of compromise until almost the end of National Socialism. 8 September 2021 is the 140th anniversary of his birth.

The two alumni Nora Grabmayr and Stella Poelzig, spoke in the school assembly about jobs in the energy industry, the current challenges in the energy industry, renewable energies and the energy turnaround, as well as the power of an almost twenty-year friendship that began in Salem.

In March 2021, the second TEDx Talk of Schule Schloss Salem took place on our Campus Härlen. All videos are published on the official Youtube channel of the TEDx Talks.

At the end of June 2021, Year 9 spent four days in the alpine nature landscape in Morteratsch near St. Moritz. A successful alternative to the Outward Bound expedition in Norway, which could not take place due to the pandemic. Dongyang tells us about his experiences.

Jalda Rebling, a specialist in European-Jewish music from the Middle Ages to the present, visited Year 9 on the occasion of the theme days. The student Fee wrote a welcome for her.

All candidates who apply for the office of school representative give a speech in the school assembly. Here is Meltem Cicek's speech.

With her personal letter to Headmaster Bernd Westermeyer, Queen Elizabeth expresses her gratitude for the condolences of Schule Schloss Salem.

Year 6 took a field trip to the gardens of Salem’s Junibau for their class unit on insects. They were able to collect and observe a wide range of crawling creatures.

Salem alumnus Jakob Schoen gave a talk in the school assembly about his impressive project “Jugend Rettet”, which came to the aid of refugees in distress at sea.

Schule Schloss Salem offers the opportunity to earn the ICDL Certification by learning how to use various programs in the Microsoft Office package. Two students describe their experiences.

Year 9 at Schule Schloss Salem is characterised by an exploration of one’s own limits and deciding to pursue the German Abitur or the IB Diploma. Many exciting projects in the boarding school contribute to each student’s development.

Two house tutors have installed a beehive scale under a bee colony to study the correlation between honey production, temperature, and atmospheric humidity in near real time.

At the graduation ceremony on 14 July 2021, over 100 graduates from 21 countries around the world who successfully completed their time at Schule Schloss Salem with the Abitur or the International Baccalaureate Diploma were honoured.

This year’s International Baccalaureate results are outstanding with an average of 35 points and a 98 percent pass rate.

Building on the basic ideas of Kurt Hahn, Schule Schloss Salem implements a challenging outdoor education curriculum. In Year 6, the radius of activities is extended.

The Henning Winter Foundation for the Promotion of the Arts in Salem has made the Salem Music Competition possible for almost 20 years. Eva Winter passed away on 10 April 2021. Members of the music service play.

Two speakers from the Kinderstiftung Bodensee visited the Social Services at Salem Castle at the end of April.

At Salem Castle students celebrated their Easter holiday with many traditional customs. Two of them describe decorating and searching for Easter eggs.

Whenever all our boarding students remain on campus, there are many exciting activities on the weekend programme. These recently included raising the maypole.

On a day filled with a variety of activities, our scholarship holders in Years 5 to 10 learned a lot about the scholarship programme at Schule Schloss Salem. And there was plenty of time for fun, too.

The first trial expedition for the Gold Award took place this year at the end of March in the woody hinterland not far from Spetzgart Castle.

Over 200 visitors from around the world enjoyed Schule Schloss Salem’s digital presentations.

Schule Schloss Salem is pleased to receive 80,000 FFP2 masks donated by a pair of parents.

At first glance, health and wellness education at schools is nothing new. The importance of health as a prerequisite to learning for the full is a matter of common knowledge. Why would Salem International Boarding School stand out in this aspect? Read on for an insight into the unique principles of an awarded health and wellbeing concept.

Students of our graduating class used the first online Student Information Day to inform themselves about various degree programmes at the two universities in nearby Konstanz.

Because our Social Service students could not meet with the primary school children they usually tutored, they kept in touch through games, handicrafts, and storytelling.

Let the coronavirus pandemic nix our beloved music competition? Not at Salem!

To hold their Project Week aboard the swimming classroom on Lake Constance our students would be grateful for your support.

Two students, in Year 5 and Year 6, describe their afternoon extracurricular activities.

Our student Angela Gall has written a column for our weekly campus newspaper "Wort zum Dienstag". Enjoy reading it!

For the school year 2021/2022 the Kurt Hahn Stiftung and the Beck’sche Stiftung once again offer a large number of partial scholarships to talented students.

“What matters is our deeds!” – On the occasion of the ceremonial awarding of Salem pins at the Nikolaus Dinner two school speakers gave a moving speech.

Rather playing the traditional Christmas concert live and on location, Salem’s musicians sent out the Christmas spirit via Internet

Pleased by the high demand for our digital information events, we have also begun to offer general sessions and special presentations in English.

Distance learning represents a change and a challenge not only for students. Salem teacher Stefanie Grimm gives a report of her own experiences.

Due to restrictions on in-person gatherings, the Parents’ Council of Schule Schloss Salem gets together digitally and gathers suggestions from other parents regarding digitalisation within the school.

Raising the bar: four journalists from two generations of Salem students will report on events and current topics at Schule Schloss Salem for their fellow alumni.

The chairman of the board of the sponsoring association of Schule Schloss Salem gGmbH, Dr Maximilian Dietzsch-Doertenbach, passed away suddenly and completely unexpectedly on 2 January 2021.

Spending a weekend in and around Schloss Salem: Years 5 and 6 enjoyed a variety of leisure activities during their school weekend at the beginning of November.

During Salem’s first Autumn Academy (Herbstakademie) three international students trained reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in their foreign language of German.

Six members of the Experiential Education Department at Schule Schloss Salem successfully completed a training course to become certified kayak and canoe tour leaders.

Christmas is just around the corner. And while you do your Christmas shopping you can support Salem with the help of „School Angels“ (Schulengel) or Amazon Smile.

With the present of this over 460-page Festschrift commemorating the 100th anniversary of Schule Schloss Salem you will give someone great pleasure on Christmas Eve.

Due to increased student enrolments, Schule Schloss Salem is constantly looking for new staff, especially teachers and house tutors. In an interview, Natalie Lander from our Recruitment Department reports on why it is worth working at Salem.

Patrik Birkle, who graduated in Salem in 2015, has been selected as a member of the Schwarzman Scholars Class of 2022.

A student and a teacher write about their experiences at the Herbstakademie Deutsch, which took place in the college for the first time this year.

During November 2020 you may noticed some uncharacteristic mustaches growing on a few of the male staff members. With the bizarre appearance, they were once again trying to raise awareness of men's health issues.

Since the autumn holidays, all classrooms at Schule Schloss Salem have been equipped with high performance air filter units.

Creepy stories, LED candlelight and lots of sweets. So our years 5 and 6 celebrated this years Halloween.

At the beginning of each school year, the new wing helpers are elected on all wings of grades 5 to 10. Shortly after this, the so-called helper weekend takes place.

On 14 October 2020, the traditional Hödinger-Runde run of the Ppper school took place. It is part of every school year in the Upper School and is usually held in the first epoch.

Year 7 spent an extraordinary outdoor day at the skywalk nature adventure park in Scheidegg.

Our online information presentations have been in high demand and we will continue to offer them on a regular basis. As in past years, you will also be able to get to know us in person at venues in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt or Zurich during this school year.

At a two-day workshop Year 9s devoted themselves to finding out what interests them most and getting better acquainted through team games.

Four class-groups of Year 10 climbed the Hochgrat and got to know each other better.

A wide range of games and activities on the first day of school unites old and new Salem students.

Former students representing Schule Schloss Salem at the 131st Cutter Regatta achieved respectable results

During our Summer Schools students immersed themselves in Salem’s boarding school life and spent some time in classrooms

The community of musicians is particularly affected in times of Corona, as singing and playing with instruments are considered to be particularly difficult.

Nothing would have quite prepared me for the amazing panorama view I had when I first stepped onto the balcony on the Zimmerman Bauernhof site back in August 2017 ...

In January 2020 the first TEDx Talk: Schule Schloss Salem took place on our Campus Härlen. A few days ago all videos were published on the official TEDx Talks Youtube channel.

Seven classes of Schule Schloss Salem successfully participated in the nationwide non-smoking competition BE SMART- DON'T START for school health promotion through tobacco prevention.

Many students submitted work to an art competition on this important issue. Their creations are on exhibition at the Spetzgart dining hall.

The Botanical Service looks after the school’s own four colonies of bees. With the help of the Müllers, a teacher couple who also own bees, students spun “Castle Honey” and filled it into jars.

During their period of distance learning students drew pictures of imaginary animals and invented Latin names for them. The results are now being exhibited on campus.

The school’s popular summer holiday programme will take place in Salem and Spetzgart despite the coronavirus pandemic.

After the Whitsun school holiday all our students were finally allowed to return to campus. Everyone was thrilled, even though there are new rules to be followed.

At Schule Schloss Salem almost all students in years 5 to 12 have been back on board again since 14 June 2020, and after more than three months of largely digital coexistence, the boarding school and school are finally filled with life again.

The research and media broadcasting ship “Aldebaran” recently travelled around Lake Constance and sent live broadcasts to our students in their classrooms or at home

Twenty-four authors trace the history of Schule Schloss Salem in a richly illustrated Festschrift. The number of copies is limited.

Looking Back: The Kurt Hahn Archive offers insight into daily life and classroom experiences at Schule Schloss Salem shortly after its founding in April 1920

In this anniversary year the Kurt Hahn Foundation plans to offer scholarships to many more students

Plenty of activities sweetened the Corona time for pupils who stayed in Salem and College during the Easter holidays

Welcome: New managing director and business manager Thomas Obitz introduces himself as the successor of Christian Niederhofer.

Formula 1 at School is a multidisciplinary, international technology competition in which students aged 11 to 19 years design, build and race a miniature Formula 1 racing car on the computer and then send it out to race.

Year 8 enjoyed a snowy white landscape and the joys of winter during their excursion to Austria.

In a workshop titled “Reading Aloud is Fun” members of the Social Service Group developed ideas for reading aloud to primary and special needs students in the village of Salem.

Launch of Cooperation between Schule Schloss Salem and the “Stiftung 20. Juli 1944”: Participation in a Conference in Berlin.

“Fractured Unity“ was the prophetic title of the XXVII Annual IB Art exhibition that was inaugurated at Schloss Spetzgart after a week of extraordinary events.

Fancy a spontaneous visit to Schule Schloss Salem? No problem. Experience our three campuses with aid of virtual reality and enjoy a glimpse into the daily routines of our boarding school students.

During its 100th anniversary year Schule Schloss Salem offers a programme of evening talks and discussions about education, politics and culture.

Students from all year groups presented pieces in front of an audience and jury during the two-day competition. Highlight of the event was the concert of the prize winners on Sunday evening.

3000 young visionaries from 227 schools, including a group of Salem students, debated resolutions to solve problems in areas of international political, economic and social significance.

All students of Years 5 and 6 took part on a special event. Zoe from China reports about how she learned ice-skating.

Parent representatives serve as a channel of communication, in both directions, between school and family. New elections are scheduled for this school year.

The biology classes of the upper school explored the evolution of life at Wilhelma Zoo and two museums in Stuttgart.

The countdown has begun! As of now you can find the latest information about events, concerts and exhibitions related to the 100th anniversary of Schule Schloss Salem on our website.

On “Buß- und Bettag” students of all year groups, staff members and many guests took part in a run of nearly seven kilometres.

Schule Schloss Salem will give presentations to interested families at seven information evenings and two educational fairs in cities around Germany.

Our teacher Aik Reuter talked about his childhood and youth in East Germany, about being spied on by the state security service and about the building of the Berlin Wall.

The entire group of Year 10s took a field trip to the European Parliament.

Students from nine schools discussed the issues of climate change at the Salem International College Youth Conference on Climate Change (SICYC).

Model United Nations Conferences (MUNs) are business games in which participants slip into the role of delegates to the United Nations. Tim, a 12th grade student, reports on the conference in Munich.

Years 5 to 10 celebrated St. Martin's Day on 11 November 2019 with a formal dinner with a delicious Martin's goose in the festive dining room.

Boarding school director Stefan Steinebach gave an extraordinary speech.

Under the motto “100 Years Future“ Schule Schloss Salem will celebrate its 100th anniversary on Friday, 3 April 2020.

A Salem Delegation took Part in the Round Square International Conference in India. Here are some Students’ Impressions of The Pre-Tour.

From archery to glacier crossings: Years 5 to 10 undertook many different outdoor activities.

Students of all year groups participated in a stimulating programme of activities tostart off the new school year, getting to know the school and their fellow classmates better.

The final expedition of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award took students to the Black Forest and offered them one challenge after the other.

Who am I? Discovering my genotype.

The IB Year 2 biology courses took a trip to Novartis, an internationally leading biological-medical company located in Basel. The groups went on two separate days, Wednesday and Friday. Since the busses each had a few free spaces, some of the German ABI year 2 students were able to join the trip.