Week Fifteen - Vecka femton (Professional Development) 21-04-12 - 27-04-12

Having had another week at Fridaskolan I have seen many more activities and I think I will be sad when leaving at the end of next week. I have become quite attached to the children in my class and have gotten to know each of them individually by helping them with their work and I can now finally remember everyone’s name! 

Poetry that Grade 5 were writing about love.

It has been a busy week as I have been teaching some English lessons to my grade five class and have been trying to persuade them to speak more English at the request of my two class teachers. It doesn’t take much to persuade some of the pupils as they say they enjoy speaking English and want to learn more vocabulary and phrases therefore they will voluntarily come to me and ask to speak in English. There is a lot of structured time for English lessons in the class as they are timetabled for every other day which stresses the importance of learning English at compulsory school in Sweden. After looking at the Swedish Curriculum for compulsory school (school from the age of seven to sixteen) I have realised that several parts of the curriculum are much the same as the Northern Ireland Curriculum and that lessons taught in the classroom would be similar to what teachers in Northern Ireland would teach, yet sometimes it can be very different for example, the pupils have home economics to the level that secondary pupils in Northern Ireland. 

 

It is strange to be able to see many similarities but still see a lot of differences. One of the main differences I notice at Fridaskolan is the freedom that the children have in the classroom and outside the classroom. I was astonished to realise that the pupils walk to a local sports stadium for physical education; they are not supervised by any adults as they walk and they cross several roads on their way. I was in total shock that they were allowed to do this as in Northern Ireland pupils are generally not allowed to leave the school grounds unless supervised by a member of staff. Another difference I have recognised is that there are two full time teachers in most classes which allows for adequate planning time for each teacher nearly every day for at least one hour which is something a teacher in Northern Ireland would do after school.

I think that the school ethos at Fridaskolan is one of trust, respect and equality as pupils can have a say in what they want to learn and what they want to do. Most of the pupils I have talked with have said they really like the school and that they are glad that they are at it and to be honest if I attended Fridaskolan as a child I think I would say the same thing!