Activities

The WSO offers its students many different lessons and extra-curricular activities in the line with the school program. We are committed to improving our students' skill sets in every area of competence and design our lessons and activities to provide a practical link between school and professional life. We offer professional careers advisory services, a learning office and a learning secretariat and encourage our students to take part in many institutionalised projects which will broaden their private or professional horizons.

Alumni - Get Together Best Seller Library Job Orientation - Alumni Offer Advice Learning Office - First Taste of Office Life Learning Secretariat Project Weeks Sports Meetings & Health Advice Team Building Days - Outdoor Events USA Exchange & Language Certificates Visiting Plants, Factory Tours Yearbook

Memorandum of Understanding

Partnership between the FFS and the Wenzhou No. 2 Vocational Secondary Specialized School, China

First visit to Wenzhou

From November 14th to November 18th 2011 Frau Greilich and Frau Regan visited a school in Wenzhou, Giessen’s Twin Town in China.

The goal of the visit was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Wenzhou No. 2 Vocational Secondary Specialized School in Wenzhou. This document, which was initially negotiated between the Local Education Department in Giessen (Staatliches Schulamt) and the Wenzhou Bureau of Education, documents each school's determination to pursue cooperative projects. Each school wants to learn from each other and to promote communication between Wenzhou and Giessen.

Frau Greilich and Frau Regan were warmly welcomed at the school, which is about the same size as the Wirtschaftsschule am Oswaldsgarten. They were given a tour of the premises and the chance to observe lessons. Talks were held with both staff and pupils of the school which helped to highlight both the many similarities and some differences between the schools.

The Wenzhou No. 2 Vocational Secondary Specialized School is situated in the middle of Wenzhou. The school offers different courses of study leading to different qualifications. The mainstay of the school is commercial training and the students learn about how companies run, how marketing works, or how to design interesting web sites in computer rooms and learning offices. What we call our learning office is for them the training base.

In contrast to the WSO the No. 2 Vocational Secondary Specialized School also offers training in “image design”. This subject includes learning photography, make up, hair design and fashion. These students are responsible for most of the photographs of our visit to the school which they kindly put at our disposal.

Several initial projects are being considered, including a cooperation to provide further foreign language versions of each schools web site, and hopefully teachers' visits in the near future.

Fourth Student Exchange between Gießen and Wenzhou

Mr. Wolfgang Greilich, Vice President of the Landtag of Hesse, is welcoming the guests.

2017 the welcoming ceremony took part in the Aula of the WSO. After the visit to China, our heads were full of new impressions and great ideas for following up on the agreements that had been signed with Chinese schools. However, when the delegations returned from China, it soon became clear that it would not be feasible for each individual school to initiate negotiations for an exchange program. Travelling to China is expensive and the travel arrangements can be complicated, and the numbers of students in Wenzhou with a population of 11 million and Gießen with less than 100,000 are an indication of the difficulties of scale.
However Mrs. Greilich and I were determined to find some way of making it possible for WSO students to visit China and Wenzhou, and to share some of the experiences we had had. Other delegates felt the same and together the decision was taken to start up an official society to develop a Chinese exchange program for students from Gießen.
This was the start of the “Verein zur Förderung der Städtepartnerschaft Gießen Wenzhou” (Society for the promotion of the town twinning between Gießen and Wenzhou), which was officially founded in August 2013. Members include the former Head of the Education Bureau, Heinz Kipp, and headmasters and school management personnel from the WSO, GGO, LIO, TLS and prominent members of the town council.
The society’s activities are well documented on their home page http://verein-giessen-wenzhou.de/.
2015 marked the first true student exchange with China. A particular feature of the exchanges, which have taken place every year since then, with up to 31 participants from various Gießen based schools, is that the German students actually live in the Chinese families and vice versa. This gives the individuals a true taste of Chinese culture (or equally German family life) which wouldn’t be possible for tourists.
Both here and in Wenzhou the visiting students enjoy organized trips to notable cultural sites such as the Great Wall, or the historic town of Marburg, and they get to grips with new culinary experiences, which are just as exciting for both sets of visitors: The Germans learn to use chop sticks and the Chinese learn to spread butter with a knife!
In contrast to previous years, this year’s exchange involves the guests from China first visiting Gießen. The return visit to Wenzhou is scheduled for later in the year. The exchange is open to students from any senior schools in Gießen itself or in the Gießen administrative district.
This year three WSO students are among the exchange group and the welcoming ceremony for the Chinese exchange students will be held in the Aula of the WSO on Friday 20th January. They will be officially greeted by Wolfgang Greilich, Vice-President of the Hesse Federal Parliament, Dietlind Grabe-Bolz , Lady Mayoress of Gießen, Annette Greilich, Principal of the WSO, and representatives of the “Twin Town Society”.
I wish all the German and Chinese exchange students a wonderful time together and hope that each group returns to their own homes and countries with a new wealth of experiences, more cultural insight and a better understanding of “foreigners and their ways”.
P.S. If anyone is interested in taking part in the exchange, please talk to Liz Regan at the WSO or go directly to the exchange website at http://verein-giessen-wenzhou.de/.