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Espoo is a city and municipality bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihtiand Nurmijärvi while surrounding the enclaved town of Kauniainen. With a population of about 300 000 residents, it is the 2nd-most poppulous city in Finland.
Lintumetsän koulu
Lintumetsän koulu
Lintumetsä school comprises lower-secondary school education. It has 435 students in grades 7-9.
As they describe in their web page, "its mission is to provide students with an all-round education in supportive community. The curriculum emphasizes environmental issues and the natural sciences. Students are encouraged to develop a positive attitude towards themselves, others and the environment."
Heta (English teacher) and Susanna (support teacher) were our hosts during our visit. We were also accompanied by a member of the "Special Needs" department, as she was from Albacete.
We also met with the leading principal, and with many other teachers throughout our jobshadowing period.
Arja, a teacher we already knew from another Erasmus+ project, came to visit us although she currently is on a 1/2 year leave.
Day 1
Day 1
The main objectives for this first day of visit were the following:
- Presenting our schools
- Finding similarities and differences between our two school projects
- Attending several classes
- Having a general idea on how they work
- Seeing how they attend students with special needs
Learning about the school
Learning about the school
Their students come from different schools from the area.
Because of the high number of students, their schedules vary from group to group. Some may have a later start while others might finish earlier.
They have very few students per class (when compared to what we are used to in Catalonia): between 16 and 20.
Day 2
Day 2
The main objectives for this second day of visit were:
- Visiting the different maker spaces -textile, arts, wood, technology…-
- Observing how they work with students who have just arrived from other countries
- Spending time in the Art classrooms
- Meeting to reflect on the visit and plan future collaborations
What draw our attention?
What draw our attention?
Working with textiles
Working with textiles
Althought they also have a classroom for this purpose as well as all the materials, we believe that they are not really making the most of it.
Home economics
Home economics
It's one of the most popular subjects in the school. Compulsory during 7th grade, they can also choose doing it during 8th and 9th grades.
In this subject they lear how to cook, how to use a dishwasher as well as a washing machine, how to iron, set the table...
Working with wood
Working with wood
They have impressive maker spaces to work with wood, as well as equipment we never have seen in a school before.
Classrooms
Classrooms
Each classroom is used for a different subject.
We were able to see:
labs
Art rooms
Music rooms
Kitchens
Maker spaces for wood, metals...
"Regular" classrooms
Textbooks, laptops...
Textbooks, laptops...
The school owns the laptops and their are kept in cupboards. Teachers may book their use depending on the activity they want to do.
They use textbooks, although:
they use old textbooks as sources of information when doing research, for example.
they have texbooks that include contents from grades 7 to 9, so they can use the same book during the 3 years and decide when introduce each content.
Notebooks
Notebooks
They use squared paper notebooks and pencil to write everything down. In these notebooks they also stick the photocopies they are given during the different classes.
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