Coding classes in Rhineland-Palatinate

Read on 2 November 2026 in the Informatik-Monitor 2026/27 (Gesellschaft für Informatik), on its Rheinland-Pfalz page and in its comparison of all Länder. Most Gymnasien and the IGS run the nine-year route; some Gymnasien offer eight years.

One detail matters for families planning ahead. The monitor states that Informatik can currently be taken as a Leistungsfach only if the pupil took it as an elective in the two school years just before the Oberstufe. A pupil who skips the grade 9 and 10 elective may lose the option of an Informatik Leistungsfach later. Our Companion course does not replace that elective, but it keeps a pupil ready to take it.

Interest is high where Informatik is offered: the monitor's Rheinland-Pfalz page gives 26 percent of Sekundarstufe II pupils taking it in 2024/25. In 2025/26 the Land counted 687 qualified Informatik teachers, about 3 percent of its teachers.

Mentors teach from India over live video. Wherever a pupil lives, the teaching is the same: the mentor gets to know them, the pupil does the coding, and every answer is reasoned through rather than copied from an answer key or an AI tool.

import json
from datetime import date

with open("veranstaltungen-2026-11-03.json", encoding="utf-8") as src:
    events = json.load(src)

holiday_start, holiday_end = date(2026, 12, 23), date(2027, 1, 8)

def day(text):
    return date.fromisoformat(text[:10])

starting = [e for e in events if holiday_start <= day(e["startDate"]) <= holiday_end]
print("Events in the file:", len(events))
print("Starting in the Christmas holidays:", len(starting))

The correct test for "is on at some point during the holidays" is an overlap: the event must start no later than the last holiday day, and end no earlier than the first. Two comparisons, each between one range's start and the other range's end. Version 2 uses it.

running = [e for e in events
           if day(e["startDate"]) <= holiday_end and day(e["endDate"]) >= holiday_start]
started_before = [e for e in running if day(e["startDate"]) < holiday_start]
print("On at some point in the holidays:", len(running))
print("...of which started before 23 December:", len(started_before))

One event more. It is a guided Roman tour of Bitburg for groups, listed from 5 January 2026 to 26 December 2028. A single row, but the principle is the whole lesson: the first program asked "starts inside?", the family meant "overlaps?". In the autumn holidays of 2026 the same two tests give 92 and 94.

backwards = [e for e in events if day(e["endDate"]) < day(e["startDate"])]
longest = max(running, key=lambda e: (day(e["endDate"]) - day(e["startDate"])).days)
print("Events that end before they start:", len(backwards))
print("Longest running event:", (day(longest["endDate"]) - day(longest["startDate"])).days + 1, "days")

Data: Land Rheinland-Pfalz, Liste der über rlpDirekt erfassten Veranstaltungen, Datenlizenz Deutschland Zero 2.0, via GovData, downloaded 3 November 2026. Counts are ours and describe the file, which lists only events entered on rlpDirekt.

1. Grades 5 and 6, on paper. Draw the holidays as a bar on a timeline. Draw four events as bars: one inside, one starting before, one ending after, one covering everything. Which ones are "on"?
2. Python, grades 7 and 8. After running Version 1, write the overlap test on your own. Check it against your four drawn events before running it on the file.
3. Grades 9 and 10. Version 3 finds four events that end before they start. Print them. What would you do with them, and why should the program not quietly drop them?
4. Oberstufe. Some dates have a time and an offset such as +01:00. Change day() so it compares full moments instead of days, and find an event whose answer changes.

Germany's legal time under the Einheitenzeitgesetz is MEZ, UTC+1, in winter and MESZ, UTC+2, in summer; the change back was on 25 October 2026 and the change forward is on 28 March 2027. With India fixed at UTC+5:30, the mentor's clock reads 4 h 30 later than yours in winter and 3 h 30 later once summer time starts.