One of the disadvantages of many schools, and especially of many comprehensives, is a tendency towards rootlessness and isolation. They are often vast, anonymous constructions of concrete and glass, erected on remote campuses well away from centres of housing. Many hundreds of students have to be bussed in every morning, only to be bussed out again in the afternoon.

Mass education leads to a loss of identity, resulting in widespread vandalism and violence. The EGG, by contrast, has firmly adopted the concept of the community school. It is a school within and for the local neighbourhood. Its rich community life spills over into the evenings and weekends.

Some of the buildings have been deliberately planned to operate independently of the school itself. The gymnasium is available to sports groups from outside the school; the auditorium can be used for private festivities and public events; a community centre at the entrance to the school has been designed with a wide range of uses in mind.

Only as the school grows and develops will it be possible to determine which parents' groups and other local residents require rooms for regular or occasional meetings.  This work is undertaken in partnership with the city council's neighbourhood regeneration programme.

Further links to the neighbourhood and the wider town will take the form of sponsorships. The gymnasium is sponsored by the locally based football team Schalke - one of Germany's top soccer clubs. The chemistry lab is sponsored by the association of dispensing chemists. The music department is sponsored by the municipal school of music and the school library by the city central library. A sponsorship for the woodwork and metalwork shops is in discussion with the chamber of trade and industry.

The EGG also envisages the school as a place of ecological education. School gardens and a children's zoo provide a vital learning environment. Only when we have learned to take reponsibility for inanimate objects, as well as plants, animals and our fellow human beings, can we become involved in the life of our city and country. Without community schools, the countryside will become a concrete desert.

For all these reasons, the EGG gives precedence to  candidates from the neighbourhood of Bismarck and the city of Gelsenkirchen when selecting prospective students.

... Every child has the right to a sense of home -
    especially at school!