Schools in Helsinki

Family life in Finland from kindergartens, child education, language schooling and everyday life. Share information and experiences. Network with other families.
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Annemari
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:34 am

Schools in Helsinki

Post by Annemari » Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:44 am

Hi everyone,our family will move to Helsinki summer 2016 and I'm looking the school for my daughter,can anybody give us feed back about Helsinki International school,positive and negative::))),we are have living in many different countrys and we have use always international schools!My daughter will go at the grade 3 in August!!!Many thanks!!



Schools in Helsinki

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tuttu
Posts: 268
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2015 4:59 pm

Re: Schools in Helsinki

Post by tuttu » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:50 am

are you talking about some particular school?

stadinslangi
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 6:51 am

Re: Schools in Helsinki

Post by stadinslangi » Tue Nov 17, 2015 4:04 pm

I am not an expert. But I am also looking for school options for my kid, so I just list out some options I found. Hope it helps.

If you live in Helsinki, you are at the best spot for getting your children into IB program than being any other locations in this country.

The IB came to Finland in 1990, and the first school to receive accreditation from the International Baccalaureate Organization, was Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK). till now, there are 17 IB programs offered in Finland and 6 out of them located in Helsinki metropolitan area.

IB Schools in Helsinki Metropolitan Area
Etelä-Tapiolan Lukio
Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu
International School of Helsinki
Mattlidens Gymnasium
Ressun Lukio
Tikkurilan Lukio

However, before you apply, you probably want to check what levels of IB (MYP, PYP, IB) they are offering. As in many IB schools, instruction is offered in two languages, the country’s official language and English. Ressu has both Finnish and English language streams. This further limited the amount of foreign students that can be admitted into the program. Also, some school's IB program have restrictions, which will selectively exclude students who are not "good enough" Finnish speaker out from their program. This has been the main concern for many foreigners, even Finnish returnee's children when consider school options in Finland.

Among these schools, some of them are having long reputation of providing IB program, thus have alumni and experience to support student to accomplish their study goal and find good universities. Some of them are due to many reasons, lack of such ability. So be wise when choose your target. The good thing is, there is no "bad school" in Finland.

Another thing when you consider to send kids to school in Finland is schedule. In Finland (actually, almost everywhere) the school finish around 14:00. Government will pay for up to two after school activities. But these after school activities are not necessary close to each other. So your kids will most probably move around in the city. There have been some unfortune cases about kids being run over by cars. Plus the very difficult winter conditions (snow piles along the street, low visibility in winter afternoon, very slippery ground and narrow street, etc), you probably want to check if you want to find a school that has your kids favorite activities or close to where you live to reduce the risk. This can be obtained by calling the school. (they do not answer such emails. I tried many times already.) BTW, there is not many services available for working parents to arrange their kids stay after school hours.

Here has been some calling for Finland to arrange more international school program to facilitate the internationalization and expand of the export business. However, such suggestions was shadowed by the recent economic challenges. I hope the situation change in the near future. Affected by current budget cut plan in Education field, there will be more merges and changes happen to small schools. So you might also find out that some school is not there any more and big school facilities are setting up to accommodate more students at one location, but not necessary to be close to any matured resident area. So it is another factor to consider when choose your accommodation in Finland.

After public schools that listed above, there are also some private international school program offered in Finland, like The International School of Helsinki, you need to pay some extra fees compare with State supported public schools. You can check it by yourself.

senemsanci
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2016 7:16 pm

Re: Schools in Helsinki

Post by senemsanci » Thu Jan 07, 2016 7:26 pm

Hello,

My name is Senem Çoker. I am an English teacher in a kindergarten in İzmir, Turkey. Our school has just started Education this year. Me with my colleague Serap Düzgüner are searching for new ideas, teaching skills and methods for our kids to make them more successful and ready them for the next better step in their learning life. We have read many articles about Finland's education policy and if it is possible we would like to make a visit to your school for a week observation. That would be a great opportunity for us as teachers and also for our kids to be more happy, social and successful in learning.

If you accept us , we will be so pleased. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.



Best Regars,

Senem Çoker

English Teacher


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