Privates Ernst Kalkuhl Gymnasium-Internat

The private Ernst-Kalkuhl-Gymnasium is one of Bonn's traditional high schools and, as a boarding school, is even one of the earliest foundations on a national level. In 1880 Ernst Kalkuhl (1849-1918) from Remscheid, after having gained experience in private schools as a teacher in England and France, decided to set up his own school for boys in Oberkassel near Bonn, the then "Institut Kalkuhl" , which then received state recognition as early as 1891. The school was always both, it was a secondary school, firmly embedded in the Bonn area on the right bank of the Rhine, but it was also a boarding school with a far supraregional character. The integration of students from foreign nations has been part of the creed of school and boarding school since the founding years and thus counteracted narrow provinciality. From a historical point of view, today's grammar school was built in the "early days" of the 19th century. Initiative, entrepreneurial risk and the will to create an alternative to the Prussian state school at the time determined the thoughts and actions of Ernst Kalkuhl and his colleagues. So the concern is to promote students in a special way and to respond to their individuality already in the theoretical writings of Dr. Töpel, Ernst Kalkuhl's deputy, was justified in a differentiated manner and linked to many practical aspects. Life in the boarding school also allowed holistic care for students. When the association of former students at the Kalkuhl Institute (“Veschaik”) celebrates its centenary in 2010, it will become clear that our school, with its very specific living space, was also a place of personal identification for many generations of students. Family ownership certainly plays an important role in this context. Ernst-Kalkuhl's son-in-law, Dr. Franz Heel from Nuremberg took over the school management in 1916 and in 1918 after the death of Ernst-Kalkuhl the school administration. He kept it until his death in 1957. During this long period, the existence of the school was threatened twice by the aftermath of the two world wars. But the founding of Ernst Kalkuhl was able to develop in decisive form despite all the adversities of the time. In the “Weimar Republic” in 1924, as what was then the “Oberrealschule”, it was given the right to take the Abitur with full state recognition in-house. Finally, in 1951 in the still young Federal Republic of Germany, the school was given the same name as all public grammar schools in the state with the designation “state-recognized high school”. The son of Dr. Franz Heel and Alma Heel (née Kalkuhl), Karl-Ferdinand Heel, took over the school from his father in 1957. As director of studies, he ran the boarding school. Since the school had meanwhile grown to over 600 students - co-education was introduced in school and boarding school in 1972 - it was decided to entrust the management of the grammar school to selected senior directors. After the death of Karl-Ferdinand Heel in 2001, his sons Ernst-Martin Heel and Franz Christoph Heel took over the school sponsorship in a "civil law company", with the director of studies Ernst-Martin Heel, who also heads the boarding school, In her celebratory speech on the 125th anniversary of the school on September 27, 2005, the mayor of Bonn, Bärbel Dieckmann, emphasized the importance of today's Ernst-Kalkuhl Gymnasium for the city of Bonn. She also praised the special educational approach of the school, which, based on 125 years of experience in boarding schools, knows how to set pedagogical accents in the area of ​​holistic and all-day pedagogy. With the establishment of a special “day and boarding school class” (grades 5 - 9) beginning in the 2005/06 school year, completely new paths were broken within a long school history, which take into account the social and educational requirements of today in a special way.