Sweden+Primary+Schools+Case+Study

**Sweden Primary Schools Case Study**

In Sweden we continued to look at two primary schools after the three schools we visited in Shetland. The schools were located in Ånge and in Torpshammar. Måns, Daryl, Esther and Nikki were the ones who visited the two primary schools.

**The Schools** Björkbackaskolan is located in the center of Ånge.  The school was built in 1999 and has 235 students and approximately 35 staff.

Torpshammars skola is located in the scenic valley in Ljungan, Ånge municipality. Currently there are about 80 students at the school. The building also houses recreation and Torpshammars library.

**Björkbackaskolan** The first school we went to was Björkbackaskolan. There we met with the teacher Ann Badman and she showed us around the school a little bit. Instantly we felt like the atmosphere in the school was more like a house than a school.

Later the pupils came inside and we went into the class and Måns presented Learning School in Swedish to all the pupils. All the children seemed very interested and they had lots of questions. After the presentation, the pupils had a class that we observed. Once again we were all really surprised how relaxed the atmosphere was in the school and how it was more like a home than a school. The pupils had no shoes inside as they would in their home and they were sitting on the tables without the teacher minding.

When the teacher went through what they were working with, many of the pupils had questions and they weren’t afraid of asking them.

When the teachers showed a YouTube video of the things they were working with, most of the pupils were laughing and seemed really happy with it. You could see from the pupils how fun and interesting they thought it was. We noticed that the teacher had a lot of interaction or physical contact with the pupils, i.e. walking next to them when they were working in groups and using many ways of showing and explaining something.

Something else we observed was that pupil and teacher relations was very good and it wasn’t strange for pupils to hug the teachers. This is something that would have been frowned upon or worse in many other countries, but here it just seemed natural.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">After the class we interviewed Ann Badman about the topic of Personalised Learning and what they do in the school to personalise the learning as much as possible for the pupils. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">They were very positive towards Personalised Learning in the school and we were told that they are working on a few projects, which allows students to be creative and do things their way. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">She suggested that a problem with Personalised Learning is that pupils have so many different interests and personalities that the teacher must find out all this and tailor it towards what they like. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">She thought that primary schools are more personalised than secondary schools, but she didn't see why it shouldn’t be as much in secondary, you just need to find a way to make it work.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">**Torpshammars skola** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> The second school we visited was Torpshammars skola. Teacher Marie Lundgren welcomed us and showed us around the school. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> Once again Måns presented Learning School in Swedish to all the pupils and here they were also quite excited and had questions about what we do.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> We got to follow a lesson where older pupils at the age of 11 and younger pupils at the age of 7 teamed up in pairs and got tasks to solve. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> The older pupils helped the younger ones to read out loud, count and things like that. It was good practice for both age groups: the older pupils had been given more responsibility and did well to help the younger pupils, who got good experience and help with their work. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> They were mostly solving maths problems. We found this a very interesting way of making older and younger pupils work together and learn from each other. It also gives the pupils a good peer-to-peer relation, which could help pupils a lot in the school.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">//“They meet every second week and then they have some tasks together with the young children. They read sometimes with them in Swedish, make some reading comprehension with them, and today we had maths and what we call problem solutions, try to make them read the problem to them, or if the young ones can read and then try to find the problem solution.”//

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">//“The reason why we made it, we feel that there won’t be so much bullying and fights between pupils if they know each other well and if they are used to taking care of each other. That’s the main reason we did this and we’ve done it for many years.//

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> //"My fifth graders are like an idol to some of them… and I guess, just to build bridges between the ages, it’s very important.” – Teacher Marie Lundgren// <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> Once again, something surprised us a bit. During the break the pupils were allowed on their own to the canteen for an afternoon snack, without teachers supervising or telling them when to come back to class. The pupils were given the responsibility themselves to behave in the canteen, find out what time they were supposed to be back and then be back in time.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> Later on in the day we observed a geography class for about one and a half hours. During the whole time pupils were very well behaved and they were working well with their tasks.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> In general we found the classroom just like in Björkbackaskolan, that the atmosphere was very relaxed, pupils didn’t have shoes inside and they had a good relation to the teacher.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> A good example of Personalised Learning in this school was the homework they have. They are all given individualised homework according to their abilities.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> When interviewing teacher Marie Lundgren we found that each student in this school has a individualised learning plan that the teacher and the parents make together and that according to the new curriculum the teacher has to individualise the teaching for each pupil as much as possible. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> There were some pupils with special needs in the school and they didn’t really have any extra teachers to help them because of the finances the school were given by the government. We agreed with Marie that this is not very good for these pupils with additional needs, however she said she does all she can to give these pupils the help they need. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> Marie thought that primary schools have always worked towards a more Personalised Learning approach than secondary schools, but she doesn’t see why the secondary schools couldn’t personalise the learning too.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">**Conclusion**

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 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The atmosphere in the primary schools is very relaxed in a positive way and the schools work towards keeping that.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The teaching in primary schools is more personalised than in secondary schools, but there is no reason for why it couldn’t be as much in both.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Pupils with special needs get extra support, but money is a big factor in how much extra support they get.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Just like in Shetland, many of the primary teachers in Sweden think Personalised Learning is the way forward.