Tuesday 14 June 2022

Primary class teachers

I remember this time of year in Scotland. The kids would become apprehensive and excited in equal measures waiting to find out who their class teacher would be for the following year. Even though mine were usually fairly unfazed, they fed off the more timid kids and of course there was always the odd ogre everyone wanted to avoid. In the kids' old school a certain Miss M... often popped up in primary six, for example, and was known to eat male children for breakfast!

Not so in Denmark. In Denmark, in our school at least, and Thomas confirms it was the same in his day in a different region, you get assigned a team of teachers from the outset and they take you through till around the age of 12. For example, for Amaia's class the team consists of Henriette for Danish, Art, and PE, as Danish teacher she is seen as the class's main teacher, and all correspondence goes through her. They have Sten for Maths, Tech, and the sciences, Signe for History, Modern Studies, and RE, Birgitte for English, Lone for German, Morten for music Maria for Home Economics. Obviously there is the odd change over the six years - a teacher may go on maternity leave for a year or whatever but the team is large enough that one change tends to go fairly smoothly.

It all seems a little less stressful, though I guess it makes June a little less tense and exciting!

How do you get to know a Scandinavian?

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