One School, Many Voices! Diversity in numbers.

When we walk through the hallways of our school, we hear other languages than German or English. By having a school where different cultures and languages come together, the community gets bigger and more interesting. But how can we know how diverse we are?

In Germany, schools are required to report certain data to state education and statistics authorities so that school statistics can be put together for state, federal, and European levels (e.g. on student numbers, background, languages, etc.). Our school's data was submitted in October 2025, and the diversity we live is statistical fact.

We may all use German to get along, but over half of RSH students have another first language. German is the most common language spoken at home, especially in almost every class across all year groups. However, in lower grades and even the higher grades, students come from families where Albanian, Bangladeshi, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Polish, Italian are spoken. In some classes you find students with three or four different language backgrounds.

Language	Count	Percentage
German	220	42.15
Kurdish	71	13.60
Russian	52	9.96
Turkish	35	6.70
Arabic	23	4.41
Albanian	14	2.68
Polish	14	2.68
English	13	2.49
Greek	13	2.49
Ukrainian	11	2.11
Tamil	8	1.53
Pashto	6	1.15
Serbian	6	1.15
Italian	5	0.96
Spanish (Castilian)	5	0.96
Armenian	4	0.77
Romanian	4	0.77
Bulgarian	3	0.57
Persian	3	0.57
Other (unspecified)	3	0.57
Hungarian	2	0.38
Kazakh	2	0.38
Tigrinya	2	0.38
Urdu	2	0.38

The data shows that around 60% of RSH students are at least bilingual. For people who speak one language, it might seem that multilingualism is rare, but in reality it's common especially at schools like ours. Students often grow up speaking one language at home, another language with friends and a third language at school. We also learn French and English at RSH.

Multilingualism has a positive impact too. With this, students can share their cultures, connect with a broader range of people, learn to get along with people are different from them, have more access to jobs, and have more self-esteem and openness. It's also good for the brain. Managing multiple languages strengthens working memory and recall. Research shows multilingualism is associated with a later onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Of course, since we speak different languages at home, we also have different cultural backgrounds. 72% of us has a migration background, including 137 with a second nationality. In addition, we have an international class that integrates students from other countries into the regular classes. Our diversity is working for students.

It's not just linguistic and cultural diversity that makes our school special, but that people of all religions are welcome, getting along. Of our nearly 700 students, 312 identify as Christian, 120 identify as Muslim, 79 as Yazidis, and 67 as other religions, including Buddhists and Hindus. 134 have no religion noted. We take religion and philosophy courses alongside each other, so these differences seem to work in our advantage too.

Our diversity is impressive on paper, but it's definitely something we should appreciate. Our school is a safe place to be ourselves, and so we learn better.