Joy to learn and to create

 A joint comprehensive school  The school building completed in 2003  Number of students 670  Number of teachers 60  Number of teaching assistants 30

 The school year is divided into four periods  For each period every class gets a new schedule  The school day has three breaks ◦ One short break (15 min) in the morning and in the afternoon ◦ 45 minutes for lunch

 Children start the year they turn 6  Obligatory since 2015

 One ordinary class ◦ Students live in the neighbourhood  One bilingual class (Finnish-English) ◦ Students may live further away ◦ Students start bilingual education in the 1st grade ◦ In 1st and 2nd grade 80% of the subjects are taught in English ◦ The number of subjects taught in English gradually decreases > 50% in 9th grade

 In 3rd grade all students start learning English – except students in bilingual classes who start already in 1st grade  In 4th grade a student may choose German  In 7th grade (6th from 2016 onwards) all students start learning Swedish ◦ Some students from other schools have already started learning in primary school  In 8th grade a student may choose French (or German)

 One special drama class ◦ 2 drama lessons every week ◦ Students make two large presentations for the whole school  8th graders for the anniversary of the school  9th graders in May  One bilingual class  Three ordinary classes

 There are about 15 core subjects  Students also choose several optional subjects  The number of hours depends on their language choices and whether they are in the drama class

 Special courses on core subjects ◦ Visual arts, music, crafts, P.E., home economics (e.g. Baking in English)  Other optional subjects ◦ Information technology, drama, French/German, photography, creative writing, audio and lighting technology

 6 classes for students who have special needs  Autism and Asperger’s syndrome ◦ Problems in the development of speech ◦ Problems in communication and in interpretation of gestures and expressions of others  Some of the students are partially or totally integrated into ordinary classes  These students come to class alone or with a teaching assistant