Coding for international school students in Germany

Sources: AGIS, agis-schools.org (homepage, Wer wir sind and school directory), read 2 November 2026; KMK, Eurydice dossier on the German education system; KMK, Vereinbarung über die Anerkennung des International Baccalaureate Diploma, Anlage 1. AGIS pages give two different member counts, 23 on the homepage and 20 on Wer wir sind, so we print neither as a fact. We are not connected with AGIS, the KMK or any school.

Bonn International School | IB Primary Years Programme (PYP); IB Diploma Programme (DP); IB Middle Years Programme (MYP)
International School of Ulm/Neu-Ulm | IB Primary Years Programme (PYP); International Baccalaureate (IB); International General Certificate of Secondary Education ( IGCSE)
John F. Kennedy School Berlin | Advanced Placement (AP); American High School Diploma; Deutsches Abitur

Look at the first two lines. Bonn lists "IB Diploma Programme (DP)". Ulm/Neu-Ulm lists "International Baccalaureate (IB)", which could mean the Diploma or the IB in general; the label does not say. A careless count would either drop Ulm/Neu-Ulm or add it to the Diploma column. Both are guesses. Our program keeps it as its own answer instead.

raw_labels = set()
schools = []
with open("agis_offers.txt", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    for line in f:
        name, offers = line.strip().split(" | ")
        labels = [x.strip() for x in offers.split(";") if x.strip() not in ("", "-")]
        raw_labels.update(labels)
        schools.append((name, labels))

def tidy(label):
    if "Diploma" in label and label.startswith("IB"):
        return "IB Diploma"
    if label == "International Baccalaureate (IB)":
        return "IB, programme not named"
    if "IGCSE" in label:
        return "IGCSE"
    if "AS / A Levels" in label:
        return "A levels"
    if "Advanced Placement" in label:
        return "AP"
    if "Abitur" in label:
        return "Abitur"
    return None

counts = {}
for name, labels in schools:
    for group in {tidy(x) for x in labels} - {None}:
        counts[group] = counts.get(group, 0) + 1

print("Schools read:", len(schools))
print("Different labels before tidying:", len(raw_labels))
for group in sorted(counts, key=counts.get, reverse=True):
    print(group, counts[group])

Data: AGIS school directory pages, agis-schools.org, read 2 November 2026; 25 pages, not a complete list of international schools in Germany. The grouping and the counts are ours. A school can appear in several rows.

Twenty-seven different labels came down to six groups, and one design decision mattered more than any line of code. The order of the tests inside tidy decides where a label lands: Augsburg lists "IB Diploma (including German Abitur recognition)", which contains both "Diploma" and "Abitur". Because the IB test comes first, it counts once, as an IB Diploma, and the Abitur row shows only the two schools that list the Abitur in its own right. Swap the order of those two tests and the answer changes. A pupil who can explain that has understood something many adults with spreadsheets have not.

1. Run it. Make your own agis_offers.txt from the three sample lines and check what your shorter file prints.
2. Move one test. Put the Abitur test before the IB Diploma test and predict the new Abitur count before running it.
3. Add a group. Count the Middle Years Programme too. How many label spellings does it need?
4. Say what is missing. Write two sentences on why 25 directory pages cannot tell us how many international schools Germany has.

Some families at international schools also follow the German system for a younger child, or plan a later move into a German Gymnasium. For them we teach the Informatik that German schools now ask for, in English, through our Informatik companion course for Klasse 5 to 10, and explain the German side on our Informatik-Nachhilfe page.

With children under 18 we keep to the age rules the AI providers set in their own terms: no tool with an adult minimum age is used in their classes. The AI tools age guide quotes the rules tool by tool.

Under the Einheitenzeitgesetz Germany keeps UTC+1 (MEZ) in winter and UTC+2 (MESZ) in summer; the clocks changed on 25 October 2026 and change again on 28 March 2027. India is UTC+5:30 throughout. These are sample times, not fixed groups.

Younger children usually do best with one class at the same time each week; exam-year pupils often add a second. The free first class is booked in your own clock.