Individual need
Decisions are still to be based on each pupil’s individual support needs.
SCHOOL SUPPORT · INCLUSION · HAMBURG
School support in Hamburg: what changes in 2026/27
Hamburg changed the organisation of school support for the 2026/27 school year. This page separates the education authority’s position, the concrete organisational changes, criticism by the Parents’ Chamber and open questions.
What is school support?
School support workers assist pupils who need help because of a disability or threatened disability so that they can participate in school life and in the educational work of school staff. The Hamburg authority describes school support as supplementary assistance, not as a substitute for educational, special-educational or social-pedagogical work.
Official source: Hamburg education authority, 26 June 2026 ↗
What the authority says remains unchanged
No general cap
The authority says there continues to be no maximum number of approvals.
Specific special-education needs
For pupils with specific special-education needs, existing approval procedures are to remain unchanged.
What is changing
Volunteer-based support is fully pooled
School support provided by voluntary-service (FSJ) staff is to be organised entirely through combined measures.
One worker may support several pupils
The authority defines combined measures as arrangements in which one support worker assists several pupils within a class or school.
Vacancies are bridged through existing combined measures
If an approved position cannot immediately be filled, existing combined measures of the same category are to be used. Exceptions allowing higher-qualified staff remain possible in justified complex cases.
Special procedure for LSE
For future pupils with possible needs in learning, language, or emotional and social development, schools and advisory centres are first to examine existing support during the first school year. Additional school support can then be assessed; complex cases may be approved earlier.
What about an existing one-to-one arrangement?
A pupil-specific approval has not necessarily always meant exclusive one-to-one support; Hamburg guidance already allowed a pupil-specific approval to be delivered within a combined measure.
However, if a child actually had exclusive one-to-one support and this is replaced by shared support, the amount of support available at the same moment changes: one person cannot be in two places at once. Whether a shared arrangement still covers a particular child’s assessed needs therefore depends on the individual case.
Why the terms “cuts” and “reorganisation” are both used
No across-the-board cut
The authority points to rising total spending, unchanged legal entitlement criteria and continued focus on individual needs. It states that around €44 million is planned for school support in 2027.
Read the authority’s statement ↗Individual availability may fall
The Parents’ Chamber criticises pooling, changes to vacancy handling, staff qualification and the LSE procedure, and calls for needs-based and transparent implementation.
Read the Parents’ Chamber resolution ↗What is documented about implementation
The Parents’ Chamber itself stresses that these figures cannot be used as a general error rate for all approvals.
TWO SYSTEMS ARE CHANGING
How school support and GTS all-day schools relate
The two systems have different functions. School support is individual assistance for participation. GTS allocation finances general school resources for the all-day programme, including teacher time, educator shares and honorarium funds.
Analysis
Facts about the GTS changesBecause they serve different functions, one system cannot simply replace the other. If individual assistance is pooled more strongly while the GTS staffing mix changes at the same school, additional coordination pressure can arise. The scale of that effect cannot be quantified reliably without school-specific data.
PUBLIC HEARING
Current parliamentary status
The Hamburg Parliament’s Schools Committee also decided to hold a public hearing on school support. The 7 October 2026 date shown elsewhere on this website refers only to the planned GTS all-day-school hearing. This site does not state a date for the school-support hearing.
NDR report on the decision to hold public hearings (opens in a new tab)