Hello and thank you to those who answered my other thread about KELA. I am now trying to choose schools for my children in Helsinki. They are 11 & 12 and will be commencing grades 6 & 7 next year.
I am finding things complex trying to decide what is best. May I ask your advice please? Have any of you entered Finland with older children like mine, & did you opt for an English speaking school or a Finnish English Bilingual? I feel it would be easier for the children to attend English but that they should go to Finnish or they will never really learn. They speak little beyond counting & days of the week.
I particularly favor a school which will progressively change to Finnish not dump them at the deep end.
We will be on limited budget so are looking at those which are not fee-paying places. The city of Helsinki website lists these.
Kulosaari Comprehensive, Töölö Comprehensive, Maunula Primary School
Kulosaari, Maunula and Töölö Secondary Schools
Have you experience with these? Maunula secondary looks good for the elder child. Kulosaari looks ok. I could not find anything on Töölö secondary in English at all. Therefore I do not find their bilingual claim convincing.
But for the younger it is very hard to choose.
Nothing on the Töölö Comprehensive site is in English. Maunula is very lacking in detail on what language most of the study is in and seems to suggest foreign students will only be taught English. Kulosaari says the class is bilingual yet only lists 4 hours per week of Finnish instruction. I am confused.
Perhaps you have sent your older child to another Finnish language school when they did not have good Finnish. Perhaps there was remedial learning and you can say if your child found things too frustrating. Thank you for assisting me.
Your Opinions on Helsinki Schools please
Re: Your Opinions on Helsinki Schools please
At the moment Ressu IB school seems to be top of the hit parade of English language schools in Helsinki. It has implemented a full IB programme (PYP and MYP). The IB diploma has a LOT more weight than the AICE (A levels) programme offered by Kulosaari eg: for entering university. It is DIFFICULT to get into an IB high school but if your kids have been to an IB middle school (like Ressu) then they have a better chance of being offered a place. If I were arriving in Helsinki now my choice would be Ressu. I know that Ressu also offers some help for children with learning difficulties who require remedial or special ed. Call them and speak to them directly. If your children are not native English speakers they will have to sit an English language test before they are offered a place. The school is over-subscribed, I am not sure if they have an spaces at the moment.
All schools in Finland follow the same national core curriculum. The only private fee-paying school in Helsinki is ISH (and possibly also the French, Russian and German schools)
Ressu, Maunula, and the English School are teaching IN ENGLISH. They are not immersion schools. The bilingual immersion programmes are only taught in primary school. Grades 1-3 are immersion English and grades 4-6 introduce more subjects in Finnish. They are designed for children wanting to learn Englsih. They are NOT designed for foreigners wanting to learn Finnish. You children will not get into a bilingual programme (at their age) unless they already speak both languages fluently.
The only way for a child to become rapidly fluent in Finnish is if they are accepted on an immigrant integration programme. You must contact the School Board Offices in Helsinki. They can give you more information on those programmes.
Kulosaari is a bit different in that it has three streams: a "normal" Finnish stream, a bilingual stream (for bilingual kids), and an international stream that teaches all subjects in English with 4 hours Finnish as either mother tongue or foreign language. It offers IGCSEs in a few subjects (EFL, French, maths, biology etc). For non-Finnish kids there is a FInnish foreign language programme (as in the other schools mentioned).
IMHO Finnish foreign language teaching is inadequate, lacking in structure and purpose. For example, incoming kids are not tested. Classes are arranged by age not by fluency. Kids are not given individualised programmes, progress checks or objectives. I have three kids (15,13,11) and I have found their progress to be painfully slow. There is a massive shortages of trained foreign language teachers for Finnish. Most FFL teachers are trained to teach Finnish mother-tongue and somehow it just doesn't work..... We have tried so hard to explain our frustration to the authorities and the schools but we have not made much progress.
My advice is THINK LONG TERM. If you are planning to stay here permanently then you should try and get your kids onto an immigrant programme, though taking the Finnish matric at 18 yrs would be ambitious to say the least. The IB programme is the most internationally recognised qualification.
Helsinki City Education Department
Address: Hämeentie 11 A
P.O. Box 3000
00099 City of Helsinki
Information Desk Services
General information: +358 9 310 86400, +358 9 310 86402
Switchboard: +358 9 310 8600
Fax: +358 9 310 86390 (Registry Office)
http://www.hel.fi/wps/portal/Opetusvirasto_en
All schools in Finland follow the same national core curriculum. The only private fee-paying school in Helsinki is ISH (and possibly also the French, Russian and German schools)
Ressu, Maunula, and the English School are teaching IN ENGLISH. They are not immersion schools. The bilingual immersion programmes are only taught in primary school. Grades 1-3 are immersion English and grades 4-6 introduce more subjects in Finnish. They are designed for children wanting to learn Englsih. They are NOT designed for foreigners wanting to learn Finnish. You children will not get into a bilingual programme (at their age) unless they already speak both languages fluently.
The only way for a child to become rapidly fluent in Finnish is if they are accepted on an immigrant integration programme. You must contact the School Board Offices in Helsinki. They can give you more information on those programmes.
Kulosaari is a bit different in that it has three streams: a "normal" Finnish stream, a bilingual stream (for bilingual kids), and an international stream that teaches all subjects in English with 4 hours Finnish as either mother tongue or foreign language. It offers IGCSEs in a few subjects (EFL, French, maths, biology etc). For non-Finnish kids there is a FInnish foreign language programme (as in the other schools mentioned).
IMHO Finnish foreign language teaching is inadequate, lacking in structure and purpose. For example, incoming kids are not tested. Classes are arranged by age not by fluency. Kids are not given individualised programmes, progress checks or objectives. I have three kids (15,13,11) and I have found their progress to be painfully slow. There is a massive shortages of trained foreign language teachers for Finnish. Most FFL teachers are trained to teach Finnish mother-tongue and somehow it just doesn't work..... We have tried so hard to explain our frustration to the authorities and the schools but we have not made much progress.
My advice is THINK LONG TERM. If you are planning to stay here permanently then you should try and get your kids onto an immigrant programme, though taking the Finnish matric at 18 yrs would be ambitious to say the least. The IB programme is the most internationally recognised qualification.
Helsinki City Education Department
Address: Hämeentie 11 A
P.O. Box 3000
00099 City of Helsinki
Information Desk Services
General information: +358 9 310 86400, +358 9 310 86402
Switchboard: +358 9 310 8600
Fax: +358 9 310 86390 (Registry Office)
http://www.hel.fi/wps/portal/Opetusvirasto_en
Thank you Penelope, your advice is wonderful. I had no idea there was such thing as an immigrant integration programme. The advice in Helsinki City's Education pages for foreigners entering Finland is seriously inadequate and answered almost none of my questions.
We are thinking long term this is why I want them to become fluent in Finnish and not just place them in an English speaking school. That would be the easy way out but do them a disservice I think. One thing I found frustrating is that Eira can aim for learning enough Finnish to sit the final exams in Finnish in 3 years but not one school for children that I could find even seems to want to attempt this in 6 years. And children even learn faster than adults.
Has anyone dealt with the Töölö schools at all? Or Helsingin Suomalaisen Yhteiskoulu? That also has an IB programme but again my main concern is a school which will teach them Finnish rather than one leading to an English certificate like IB.
We are thinking long term this is why I want them to become fluent in Finnish and not just place them in an English speaking school. That would be the easy way out but do them a disservice I think. One thing I found frustrating is that Eira can aim for learning enough Finnish to sit the final exams in Finnish in 3 years but not one school for children that I could find even seems to want to attempt this in 6 years. And children even learn faster than adults.
Has anyone dealt with the Töölö schools at all? Or Helsingin Suomalaisen Yhteiskoulu? That also has an IB programme but again my main concern is a school which will teach them Finnish rather than one leading to an English certificate like IB.
OK, so it means Töölö. 
Well I'm not sure which schools are in Töölö, since I'm an Espoolaiset myself! There is a big school in Hesperia (I ran a kiosk there during Helsinki Cup in the summer) but I have no idea what it is like. In theory, all Finnish schools are pretty much the same. Best to visit them yourself to ask all the detailed questions.
Well I'm not sure which schools are in Töölö, since I'm an Espoolaiset myself! There is a big school in Hesperia (I ran a kiosk there during Helsinki Cup in the summer) but I have no idea what it is like. In theory, all Finnish schools are pretty much the same. Best to visit them yourself to ask all the detailed questions.