Mrs Stephenson’s visit to Sweden May 2009

I was asked to join nine other teachers from Warwickshire on a visit to Ystad in Sweden during the half term break. We were asked to visit schools and find out if there is anything that we could learn from their education system that is better than ours. The plan is to then share good practice seen in Sweden with other teachers in Warwickshire.

We left Birmingham airport on Sunday 25th May and flew to Amsterdam. From there we flew to Copenhagen and from there we caught a train to Malmo and then another train to Ystad. We stayed at a very pretty hotel in Ystad until Saturday 30th May.

We spent our first day meeting the Director of Education for the area and other key people who work with schools. We walked to the nearest school and had lunch there. In the evening we met up with various Education Officers for a meal.

I worked with a Deputy Headteacher from Atherstone for the rest of the week. We spent three days in Norreportskolan, a school for years 9 – 11. We found school life very different from ours. School starts at 8.00 and finishes at about 3.00 although not all teachers and students have lessons all day and are free to go off site when they choose. Students and staff do not have to sign in and out of the building which struck me as a bit of a Health and Safety issue!
 

There is no specific break or lunchtime for the whole school. Breaks are taken when there is a space on the timetable so there is no mass movement time. I liked this as it made the school seem very calm. Everything is paid for through very high taxes so school dinners, materials for cooking, woodwork and textiles lessons are ‘free’. However, there are no trips because students cannot be asked to pay for them and everyone must be included.

Students take a greater responsibility for their own learning than here. No one chases them if they are not in lessons or if they do not work hard. I saw no poor behaviour and was told that it is not the teacher’s job to make students behave, it is their parents. If a student does not behave their parents have to set up a meeting with the school nurse as it is deemed that they have a medical problem. The nurse and the parents will ask for any further support from eg an educational psychologist and the student will then be returned to school able to behave! Parents and students must attend parents’ evenings and any other meetings that are deemed necessary. Parents are expected to come out of work if necessary.

All students must study Swedish, Maths and English. They then choose to study in a particular area, eg the sciences, humanities, music, technology subjects. They sit National tests in May of Year 11 which their teachers mark. They are given one of three grades, good, very good or much very good.

There is no school uniform. Students had mixed feelings about this. Some said that wearing their own choice of clothes gave them a sense of individuality, others said that it would be easier to have a uniform as there would be no competition to wear the ‘best’ clothes and they would not need to buy so many clothes.

There was a lot of space in Norreportskolan which appears to be typical of all schools. The corridors were wide with seating areas outside some classrooms where small groups of students could work or chat between lessons. Everywhere was very quiet – no one shouted at all. The school was very clean. Students helped themselves to lunch, they put their own dishes away and left the dining hall clean – there was no adult supervision.

There were no IT rooms. Students could borrow a laptop from the library using their library card but they could not take them home.

There were no after school activities at this school. Once lessons end teachers are not expected to be with students. There are other establishments for students to go to if they choose, like after school clubs.

Children can go to school from a very early age but do not have to until they are 6. Up until then they are mainly educated out of doors, even in the winter! If they need a sleep they are wrapped in a sleeping bag out of doors!!

Teachers do not follow a strict syllabus or scheme of work. It seems as though they can teach whatever they want to for as long as they wish and much of the work that I saw was topic based. In cookery, students are expected to lay the table and eat the food that they make in sociable groups including saying grace at the start of the meal.