The Austrian school system

age	5-6	6-9	9-14	14-18
grade	Kindergarden or Vorschule(In these two schools you get prepared for Volkschule)	Volkschule(Here the compulsory school starts and you learn everything you need further in your schooldays.)	Hauptschule, Mittelschule(You have to visit one of these two schools to go to polytechnische Schule, Berufsschule or HTL. But if you have visited Vorschule you don’t have to go to school anymore.	Polytechnische Schule(You stay there for one year and if you didn’t visit Vorschule you don’t have to go to school after this year anymore.)   Berufsschule(You stay there for 4 years and you learn all these things you need on the job in which you will be trained.) HTL(This is a school like Berufschule, but here you are able to sit the Matura(a exam that allows you to go to university)and you have to go to HTL for 5 years and not only for 4.)
			Gymnasium Here you are also able to sit the Matura. After this school you have got a general education.

The school I visit is called Tanzenberg. Tanzenberg is a humanistic Gymnasium, that lays on a small mountain in Carinthia. Because there isn’t a town so near in Tanzenberg we have got a pristine nature. This is one of many things, why I like Tanzenberg much more, than other Gymnasiums.