Welcome!

SMAKS (Smestad Aktivitetsskole / Activity School) is a private after school program first established in 1990. In all our years, we have always prioritized enriching our children by providing a diverse assortment of extracurricular classes and activities so that their everyday is both enjoyable and enlightening. Here, children will play, learn, and discover while forming new, long lasting friendships.

DEPARTMENTS

We are one of the largest activity school in Oslo! This year we have approximately 370 students from first to fourth grade divided among five departments. We have our own locations for each department, and we use the school’s gym and special rooms (such as their art rooms and theatre) for different classes and activities. Each department also has their own manager who is responsible for the organization of the department.

MINI is the department for the first grade. This year there are around 75 children and 11 assistants. They are located in a large room within the same hallway as the first grade classrooms, just across from the “common” wardrobe area. The proximity from school to SMAKS for our first graders makes the transition easier. The common wardrobe is used for storing children’s outdoor and extra clothing items. The first graders have two bathroom facilities: one is located within the same hallway, the second is down the stairs near the main entry, adjacent to the ceramics room. At the end of the school day, there is an assistant to “pick up” the children from each class. They check the children into SMAKS using sfopro.no, confer with the teacher to hear of absences, and then lead them over to the MINI classroom. Attendance is taken, food is served, and afterwards there is either classes or free play outside. The first graders play primarily in the front school yard, including the football court across the street.

MIDI The department for the second grade is called “MIDI”. Here, there are around 75 children and 13 assistants. MIDI is located near the second-floor gymnasium, above MAXI and down the hall from Monolitten. They have wardrobe spaces in the hallway directly outside of the main room, and one class has their wardrobe in the basement (referred to as the “bomberommet”) with the third grade. The bathrooms are also located in the basement, as well as the “lost and found” box. MIDI shares the front schoolyard with MINI during outside playtime. Similar to the first grade, assistants meet and check the children into SMAKS each day outside of their classrooms. They go with them down to MIDI where attendance is taken collectively before serving food.

MAXI is for the third graders and this year there are 80 children. They are located on the first floor just across from the gravel court outside and near the SMAKS office. 3rd graders have their outside time in the inner schoolyard where there is a playground, basketball hoops, a ping pong table, and football goals.

SUPERMAXI For the 4th graders, we have SUPERMAXI. They are located in the school garden, which is the red house across the road, near the football court by the front schoolyard. This year we have 80 children at SUPERMAXI. We do our best to offer exclusive and exciting classes and activities to maintain retention and keep SMAKS a great place for kids. At SUPERMAXI we have a parkour park, a ping pong table and a large garden with plans of a greenhouse in the future. Our school lockin/sleepover for the 4th grade that is held annually in April/May is our most exclusive activity and something SMAKS kids look forward to from their very first year at MINI.

MONOLITTEN This is our department for children within the autistic spectrum. Children here work one on one with an assistant with their own day plan and activities. Collaboration with the school is extremely important here, and we use the same location at SMAKS as the school does for MONOLITTEN. Using the same areas as the school reinforces stability and safety with the children. There are six children at MONOLITTEN and six assistants.

PERSONNEL

We are lucky to have a wonderfully engaged personnel whose ages range from 19 to 40 years old. Most of our assistants are in their 20s with a generally equal gender ratio. We prioritize hiring assistants with strong and unique interests and skills so that we can provide our children a variety of classes and activities. It is our assistants that lead the classes, so classes might vary from year to year based off the competence of our personnel. It is important to us that our employees enjoy their job and find their work meaningful, which is why we include our assistants in the planning and organization of our daily activities. We have positive results from doing this as we have a high retention span among personnel. In addition, many of our assistants also work at the school as either teacher’s aids or substitutes.

LEADERSHIP & THE SCHOOL BOARD

Benedicte Lutken is the director of SMAKS. She is educated within marketing, art and sport science in addition to having a PPU. Benedicte has worked at SMAKS for over ten years. She is currently in her 40s and has two children herself. We are a large activity school and there is a great deal to organize, so Benedicte and the managers work very closely together. SMAKS has a parent driven board and their board leader is Vidar Lundberg. The board also has a representative from the school and five board members. Our parent group is very resourceful and extremely engaged. Together, we have a great partnership and we work together to provide the best we possibly can for our children.

SCHOOL & SMAKS COLLABORATION

The school and SMAKS often work together, and our managers attend meetings with the teachers at the school on a regular basis. Collaboration with the teachers enables us to better understand the children, and we are active in informing one another on what takes place in our classrooms and in the school yards. We have many social events together, something that reinforces the relationship between the school and SMAKS. Our employees at SMAKS are often employed at the school as well; as teacher’s aids or substitutes. This contributes to creating continuity and safety for our children, while simultaneously providing us a glance into the everyday life of the students. Both the school and SMAKS are focused on maintaining the same code of conduct and rules; which is to say that SMAKS upholds the same rules as the school. We believe that this creates safety because the children know what is expected of them.

EXTRA CURRICULAR CLASSES

We are very proud to offer over 25 different classes in a single week! This is incredible, however quite the puzzle for us to organize when considering the availability of various rooms in addition to 325 children that want as many classes as possible. We find that the classes are a unique opportunity for children to try out different activities and hopefully discover their true passions and interests. We find that classes also a provide a special social atmosphere, where children can become acquainted with one another from other classes and sometimes other grades.

We send a registration form and info packet for the classes each autumn and winter. Those that return the form within the deadline are prioritized. We cannot guarantee spaces in all of the classes, but the managers try their best to make sure every child has a class to look forward to. The assistants at SMAKS are the ones that hold most of the classes, and we hire after teaching and subject competence. The classes span over all four target areas as defined by the National Curriculum for activity schools in the Oslo county: 1. Nature, environment and sustainable development 2. Art, culture and creativity 3. Physical activity 4. Food and health

MONTHLY THEMES & ACADEMIC ENRICHING ACTIVITIES

We have a variety of themes throughout the school year and we try to transform the department with regards to the current monthly theme. Some themes are naturally connected to the time of year (such as Christmas, Easter, the 17th of May, etc), and in other cases we try to have a theme related to what the children are doing at school (outer space, under the ocean, friendship, countries, and so on).

We have a unique opportunity at SMAKS to sneak in some academic learning through play and games in our classes and in free activities outside. Collaboration with the teachers in the different grades is therefore essential to us when planning and organizing our activities. At SMAKS, children also practice and improve their social competence through play. It is important that children are permitted to play freely, decide for themselves, discover, wonder, and handle resistance and conflict. These are the things our adults at SMAKS help and guide children through.

SMAKSTIME

Morning SMAKS: From 7:30 to 8:30 we currently have morning SMAKS outside for 1 to 4th grade in the school garden and football court. Our location during the autumn and winter season may change, parents will be informed of this via email. After school it’s SMAKS TIME! All the departments are open from 13:00 to 16:30. There are classes occurring all throughout the day within our operating hours, but they generally begin after we have served the children after school. On Fridays, we serve hot meals which are prepared at SMAKS by the managers and the director, Benedicte.

When the children are finished eating, it’s time to go outside! We go outside with the children every day, in all types of weather. We have two schoolyards and a school garden with playgrounds, sandboxes, football courts, and a parkour park for the kids to play. We have scooters, jump ropes, hoola hoops, all sorts of sport balls, and a large amount of other play and sports equipment available. So, we have plenty to play and do outside. By 16:00 all the children are brought inside again to their respective departments. Please note: It is very important to label all clothing articles! That way, when clothes are forgotten outside or in other school areas, our assistants can return them to the right owner.

Otherwise with lost and forgotten clothes, they are collected and placed in our lost and found. There are two lost and found locations: one in the wardrobe by MINI and the second under the stairs in the basement wardrobe to MAXI and MIDI. Inside time is from approximately 15:00. This is when kids can choose to come inside and play or remain outside for another hour. During inside time there is free play, board games, puzzles, drawing, coloring, card games, beading and crafts for the kids. Some grades, such as second and third, also have the gym available where play dodgeball and other games. At 16:15 it is clean up time! We clean up the department together with the children.

When everything is put away and cleaned, the children then fetch their backpacks and prepare to go home for the day. We close precisely at 16:30 and we ask all parents to please respect our operating hours and pick up their children within that time frame. FOOD At SMAKS children eat a meal every day. One day in the week we serve bread with toppings, two days in the week there is flatbread with toppings, one day we serve yoghurt and on Fridays there is a hot meal. Friday hot meals range between pizza, bread rolls, waffles and pancakes, vegetable soup, tomato soup, pasta salad, fish sticks, and more. During holiday weeks and days, we serve two meals during the long day (7:30/8:00 to 16:30/15:00)

RATES; REGISTRATION AND RESIGNATION

We offer 5 day and 3-day membership 5-day membership costs 2800, kr per month 3-day membership costs 2325 kr per month You will be billed via mail Parents may choose themselves whether they would like five- or three-day membership, but if it is a 3-day membership, the days must be permanent. Everyone pays for an entire month, no matter how frequent or infrequent your child attends SMAKS.

During holidays we are open all day and serve two meals. We organize a program for the kids during these long days, purchase food, and arrange the personnel based off how many children are registered for holiday weeks. For the reason we ask that you respect our deadlines and register your child for the holiday accordingly. Parents can terminate their child’s membership with a two month notice from the first of a month. This applies also to changes from five day to three-day membership. Termination must be sent in written form via email. It is not possible to apply for temporary leave from SMAKS.

If you do not need a spot at SMAKS for a period, you can terminate it and then join again later. Smestad Activity School’s board works to get equal terms as the communal activity schools receive in relation to economy-based payments. So far, the board has decided to establish a temporary plan where family incomes under 387 552 per year may apply for the reducedprice plan. The plan does not apply for every recurring year, so a family must apply for the plan in each new year.

Contact Benedicte for the income declaration application and how to apply at benedicte.lutken@osloskolen.no

PRIVACY

Smestad Activity School processes your personal information in order to register your membership at our facility.

• Registration of children and how to contact their parents.

• Billing from our accountant, Anne Naper Andersen.

• Registration of the payer’s personal number so that our accountant can send information to the government’s tax authority.

• All student applications are saved in a locked safe and are then shredded when the child no longer attends Smestad Activity School.

Our Routines:

• Children attending Morning SMAKS are to be brought by the parent to the Morning SMAKS area (alters according to the season, parents are informed via email).

• When you are picking up your child to go home, please cross them out with the assistant working at the at the checkout table. We require that we see the parent or guardian upon checking out. It is very important that you make sure your child is checked out of SMAKS due to firesafety rutines. If the firealarm starts, we need to be able to confirm with our lists.

• If your child is sick, shall be picked up by someone other than the parent, or shall stay home please send us a message.

• If your child shall begin to go home alone, we require written confirmation via mail that includes what days and at what time they shall go home alone. After this initial email, we accept phone calls if there are changes in the child’s routine.

• Use of smart washes and phones by the children is not permitted at SMAKS. We require that all children leave them secured in their backpacks.

• Assistants outside may be identified by their yellow work vests.

• Please pick up your child before our closing time at 16:30.

• On Fridays the managers at SMAKS are responsible for closing the school. They begin closing the facility at 16:15, so please keep this in consideration when you are going to pick up your child on Fridays.

• The children are allowed to play freely within the school yards, which is quite a large area. We often have 300 children both outside and inside at various classes simultaneously. Please keep that in consideration when you come to pick up your child.

• We are wholly dependent on good collaboration with parents and we very much appreciate and welcome feedback on how we might improve our program. Please send feedback to the department managers or Benedicte.

• If there is something you are not satisfied with, please contact Benedicte or the department manager. We appreciate that you do not take up concerns with the assistants, as it is the managers that may help you best.