Darlene Quayle: European Schools Research and Explorations

Braedstrup Folkeskole, grades 0-9

Braedstrup is a government-run school and follows the national curriculum. Even so, they have opportunities for students to pursue interests and are able to be flexible when visitors come, opportunities appear, or crises happen. There are three buildings for Braedstrup: the “little” building where the children in grades 0-2 have classes, the old building for grades 3-6, and the newly renovated building for grades 7-9. They have quality facilities in the newer building for art, science, sewing and cooking. The older building will be replaced soon, to my understanding.

When asked about how the government supports her school, the administrator said that they send out a published booklet every month… and then detailed how the funding is used for her school. Like many other places, they received a 10% cut in funding this school year.

“Little School”

There is a bin of blue shoe-covers at the entrance of the “little” building for visitors to put over their shoes while in the building. The students leave all their shoes in the hallway at the coat racks. The desks are very tall, with tall chairs that have adjustable footrests. Students stay with one teacher for the day, and go to a central cafeteria during lunchtime. Most bring home lunches in little plastic containers. Students enter grade 0, our equivalent to Kindergarten, at age 6, some at age 7. Some students attend a preschool (called a “Kindergarten”) before starting school.

Middle School and Upper School
One of the teachers is concerned about the rigidness of the curriculum and the emphasis on assessment. Another prefers the structure. During our visit, we had the opportunity to do video interviews with students. They seem to like their school and most feel challenged, although some find it easy. For homework, they have about an hour at 5^th grade and up to two hours during large projects at 9^th grade. They thought this was fair to heavy. There are no sports or clubs affiliated with the school, so most students have few outside activities except perhaps private music lessons, recreational sports or if they are older, a job (rare). Their class schedule varies from day to day. Some days end at 12:45, while others go until 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. Most classes have a 10-15 minute break in between them. The students have their own classroom, and move only to go to a specialist teacher’s class, such as art or science. Otherwise, the teachers move from room to room to deliver each subject. They thought it horrifying to have to move from one teacher’s room to another teacher’s room and to have only 5 minutes in which to do so!

While most of the students we spoke with had started English in 4^th grade, the government has recently moved it to 3^rd grade at the first year of English studies. They add a second language (usually German, sometimes French) at 7^th grade. Often a student will add a third language during 8^th or 9^th grade. Most of the older Danish students spoke English fairly well, and the 5^th graders were able to understand much of what we said, which was a lot. We were asked to present about our town and our travels to four different classes of students.

In the fall, during students’ 9^th grade year, students spend a week visiting potential Ervervskoles or Gymnasiums to help them decide where they want to apply for the following year.

After Compulsory school
At the end of 9^th grade, students choose one of three paths: business/technical/trade school (Erhverskole), 3-year high school (Gymnasium-general university prep), or an Efterskole (intermediate stage interest-based school, after which they choose either the Erhvervskole or the Gymnasium.) Efterskole is available for 8^th (rarely), 9^th, or post-9^th grade, and occasionally a student will stay for two years. It is a uniquely Denmark tradition to attend an Efterskole. Because of this, it is rare for a student to graduate from high school before age 19 or 20. Most of them then take 1-3 years off before attending university, so most students entering university are 20-23 years old. During this interim, they travel and take jobs.

Substitute teachers
An interesting piece about schools in Denmark and Scandinavia is that the substitute teachers are not required to have a teaching certificate. Instead, they are recently graduated from high school and are trying out education as a potential field of study for university.

Odder Lille Friskole

Odder Lille is a private school which is 85% funded by the government. The parents pay for the balance of the child’s education here. Because it’s private, they can choose not to do the quarterly term assessments (which the teachers correct, I later found out from two teachers at Østerskov). The students still have to take the end-of-9^th grade tests for high school entrance.

One thing I noticed about Odder Lille is the easy relationship between the students and the teachers. There is also a big emphasis on students having respect for each other and becoming self-reliant. They have weekly all-school meetings, and frequent grade-level meetings for projects. Students have free access to materials for projects, and if something goes missing, the students bring it up in the weekly meeting, asking the other students to be responsible with the tools, and letting them know the difficulty they had in completing their project without that certain tool. The teacher rarely intervenes; instead the emphasis is on the student solving their own problems.

Most learning activities are done with partners or groups, and projects are very open-ended. This can sometimes be frustrating for students who are more advanced and partners who are less likely to follow-through, but I also noticed that at least one teacher decided to let advanced students work together so that they could push further and create their own challenges. All ninth grade students are required to create their own project at the end of the year and publicly present it to the class and/or parents at the end of the year, much like our own senior project, only without the community service requirement.
The sixth and seventh graders were working on language research: how American slang has infiltrated their activities and lives. They are creating graphs, PowerPoints, posters and presentations to show their findings. The teachers would like them to be aware of its influence and to reduce its use in everyday speaking (especially the swear words). We talked with a couple of groups about the standard consequences in traditional American schools for using that language.
The fifth grade students were making full-size trash people with chicken wire, plastic bags and trash. While the 8^th and 9^th graders were using the constructions room for their scale-model projects (“create a project in which you have to use scale measurement and math”), they just came in and used fabric from the storeroom and the glue gun. Teachers randomly circulated through the crafts areas, mainly the 8^th-9^th grade math teacher who was overseeing that current project. He would stop, lean against a table and chat with the students about what they were doing, answer questions and make suggestions for keeping their models to scale.

Students like Odder Lille school, and appreciate the opportunity to learn about things they are interested in. Some thought the 3-week project was a bit long; most projects are 1-2 weeks long.

The teachers all like working there and enjoy the atmosphere of camaraderie. All the staff members were friendly toward us and we were welcome to wander the school and take photos or talk with students in any classroom.

There is some concern that maybe the students aren’t learning enough, that it’s too free and loose, but the teachers are aware of the national standards and where the students need to be after 9^th grade, and tell me they make every effort to make sure that the integration of lessons and projects reflects those standards. Sounds familiar!