German School Award 2025 Goes to Berlin Primary School

• Robert Bosch Stiftung and Heidehof Stiftung present Germany’s most prestigious award for schools.
• Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honors this year’s winners in Berlin.
• A first: Three schools receive the newly introduced “Democracy Education” thematic award.

Berlin, 30 September 2025 – The Maria-Leo Primary School in Berlin (BE) has won the German School Award 2025, which comes with a prize of €100,000. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the main award today at Studio Berlin in Adlershof. (His speech is available at www.bundespräsident.de.)
Five additional awards of €30,000 each were presented to the following schools:

Schule An der Burgweide in Hamburg (HH)
Evangelische Gesamtschule Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck (NRW)
Questenberg Primary School in Meißen (SN)
Jenaplanschule Weimar – State Community School (TH)
German International School Tbilisi, Georgia

For the first time, three schools were honored with the new thematic award for Democracy Education, each receiving €30,000:

Ernst-Reuter Community School in Karlsruhe (BW)
Schule An der Burgweide in Hamburg (HH)
Evangelisches Schulzentrum Muldental in Großbardau (SN)

All other finalists received recognition awards of €5,000 each.
Since 2006, the German School Award has been presented annually by the Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH and the Heidehof Stiftung GmbH to honor outstanding schools. Partners include ARD and the ZEIT publishing group.

At Maria-Leo Primary School in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district, 385 students learn in an environment that places self-responsibility and individual support at its core. The school building follows the “learning house” model: each floor offers independent learning spaces staffed by multiprofessional teams that accompany children from first to sixth grade. A “Level-Up” system allows students to gradually gain more autonomy.
“What impresses me most is the consistent integration of space, pedagogy, goal orientation, and joy in learning,” says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Bohl, spokesperson for the German School Award jury and Director of the Tübingen School of Education.

What began in 2018 with just 40 children as a branch of another primary school has become a model for contemporary school development. Key criteria for high-quality teaching—such as constructive support, cognitive activation, and classroom management—are part of everyday practice.
“This school demonstrates impressively that excellent teaching is above all the result of committed teams and a well-thought-out concept. All schools can learn from this courage to innovate,” says education expert Bohl.

“Democracy is not learned from books alone—it must be experienced and practiced. With our new thematic award for democracy education, we want to highlight how this can be successfully integrated into everyday school life,” says Dr. Bernhard Straub, CEO of the Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH. “The ideas and concepts submitted by the schools impressed us so deeply that we decided to present not just one, but three awards.”
“These schools create spaces where children and young people experience genuine participation, take on responsibility, and live democratic values in their daily routines. They show clearly: schools can—and must—be workshops of democracy.”
An overview of the schools honored with the Democracy Education Award is available on the German School Portal.

The German School Award is considered the most demanding distinction for outstanding schools in Germany. The jury evaluates six quality criteria: quality of instruction, academic achievement, approach to diversity, responsibility, school climate, school life and external partnerships, and school as a learning organization. These characteristics are now widely recognized as hallmarks of high-quality schooling.
Since 2006, more than 2,700 schools have applied. The award-winning concepts are made accessible to all interested schools through the German School Portal, professional development programs, and publications. In addition, applicant schools have the opportunity to work intensively on their instructional development for 15 months within the German School Award Forum.
Programs such as the school visit initiative are open to all teachers in Germany and enable visits to award-winning schools.
The application phase for the German School Award 2026 is already underway: all general and vocational schools in Germany, as well as German schools abroad, are invited to apply by 31 January 2026.