Welcome to the IFC’s Website

Our principal says WELCOME

Dear parents, dear students, dear international guests at the FSG,

as the Principal of the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium I would like to welcome you here on the website of our International Fellowship Classes (IFC). Thank you for your interest in our unique project.

Our world continues to grow together, but unfortunately we are also observing tendencies of drifting apart, growing nationalism and prejudices against people from different cultural backgrounds.

We at the FSG want to resolutely counteract these tendencies through our motto “Diversity as an opportunity”.

Our International Fellowship Classes (IFC) pursue this goal in an excellent way by promoting international understanding and communication between cultures. By studying together, exchanging ideas and supporting each other for one whole year in form 10 our students and our guests truly meet.

This way everyone starts to think outside their own cultural box. New intercultural points of views, perspectives and friendships are developed that in many cases last much longer than the school year. Above all, on the basis of intercultural encounters the young people can develop into individuals who are not only fluent in foreign languages, but are also open to new things and go through life as open-minded, curious citizens of the world.

Therefore, year after year, we look forward to welcoming our guests, who are not only a great enrichment for their host families and classmates in the IFC classes, but also for our school life at the FSG. We would like to congratulate our own students for being part of this project and encourage more students to make this unique experience.

The project coordinators say HELLO

Thank you for visiting our homepage and showing your interest in the International Fellowship Classes (IFC) project. Since September 2003, young people from all over the world have been coming to us in Marbach am Neckar to the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium for a whole school year to attend school in two International Fellowship Classes together with our German pupils.

This gives all project participants the unique opportunity to get in touch, meet each other, get to know each other, exchange views, learn with and from one another, understand each other (better), grow together and make friends. This way, our IFC students and their (host) families not only acquire and develop their own intercultural and interreligious skills, but also contribute to making our planet a more open-minded, tolerant and peaceful place.

As project coordinators, we are very grateful that we too can make our contribution to the success of the project. With great dedication and enthusiasm, we teach IFC students together with our colleagues at school. During the IFC year, we also support the young people, their parents and siblings outside of the classroom and the school building in word and deed.

Now we would like to invite you to see for yourself the splendidness of the IFC. Take a look around our website, read one or the other article, tell others about us, apply or encourage interested young people to apply.

We are happy about countless, impressive and moving experiences in the past and are looking forward to many new, exciting, great encounters in the future – maybe with you ;–).

Bye for now!

Sincerely yours

Natalia Sipos, Roman Büttner & Theodoros Petritzikis – IFC project coordinators