Learning perseverance, discipline and work ethic through sport

What role does sport play at the Berlin Cosmopolitan School?

The Berlin Cosmopolitan School strives to balance academic and non-academic activities. We believe that our sports programme offers students a wide range of choices that guarantee this balance. Our aim is to develop our students holistically and prepare them in the best possible way for their time after school.

Is it important for children to participate in sports?

We want our students to be as active as possible. Not everyone is enthusiastic about sports. However, our main concern must be to teach our students the importance of a healthy and active lifestyle. Our philosophy is to offer our students as many sporting opportunities as possible. If they develop an enthusiasm for one or more of these sports and continue to play them as adults, we will have achieved our goal.

Research shows that human development benefits greatly from sport and physical activity – for example by promoting cognitive functions, motor skills and confidence in one’s own abilities. Our sports programme is deliberately designed to teach our students social skills: Working together as a team, setting and pursuing goals, building friendships and working for a common purpose. We are not just about ‘faster, higher, further’, but about perseverance, discipline and work ethic.

How does BCS arouse students’ interest in sports?

We create a positive learning environment in which our students feel safe and can engage in many sporting activities without pressure. Diversity is the key for us. Some prefer individual sports or experiential activities; others appreciate the social aspects of team sports or seek physical challenges. We believe that at our school everyone can find a sport that suits them. Our job is to find out what students enjoy and give them the chance to try it.

What else does BCS offer its students in terms of sports?

In addition to regular PE lessons, we offer our students an extra two hours of PE per week as part of our extracurricular programme, which includes more than 20 sports. Every student has to choose at least one sport from this extracurricular programme. We also have more than 100 children in our afternoon basketball clubs, and our school has a partnership with the multiple German basketball champions ALBA Berlin. In 2016, both our boys’ and girls’ teams won the ALBA high school league. We also cooperate with the Viktoria Mitte football club and have our own school team, the Central Hoops Berlin Cosmopolitan e. V. .