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- ”learning by doing”
- the experience of all kinds of weather
- motory training
- get ”tougher” when it comes to low temperatures and snow / rainfall
- know the local area better
- social learning across the age groups
The
municipality of Storfjord:The
slogan is ”Mangfold styrker” – ”Multiplicity is our strength”Storfjord
is a municipality where 3 tribes live together –Sami people,
descendants of Finnish immigrants and Norwegians. The inheritance of
3 cultures give us a lot of opportunities.
Storfjord is situated in Northern Troms
in Northern Norway, at the end of the Lyngen fjord.
The municipality has borders to Balsfjord in the south, Lyngen in the west and Kåfjord in the north. To the east Storfjord share borders both with Sweden and Finland. The number of inhabitants has been stable tha last years, around 1850 people.There are 3 schools in Storfjord: Hatteng,Skibotn and Elvevoll. Elvevoll is by far the smallest. The other two schools also have secondary schools and about 100 pupils each. The nature is absolutely fantastic. Situated at the fjord and within reach of gigantic mountains we have all the opportunities in the world to hunt, fish and otherwise enjoy an outdoor life. As the most southern of the municipalities in northern Troms, we enjoy special economic advantages.
At the western side of the
Lyngen fjord Elvevoll school and kindergarten are situated. The area
where our pupils come from stretches from Kileng in the south to
Rasteby in the north. Our school is a very small rural school,
consisting of about 20 pupils in two classes. The pupils are aged 6
– 12. We teach 3 or 4 ages groups at the same time in the same
lesson. This requires a special kind of pedagogical structure, which
is well-known all over Norway.
About 50 % of the schools in our
country are small schools like ours.
We always fight the
”Ghost of Shutting down the small schools ” in
economical bad times.
We became
Elvevoll Oppvekstsenter - Elvevoll Center of Education -
from January 2001 and try to make changes to become exactly that. It`s a great opportunity to renew pedagogical thoughts from long time ago .
”Upstairs” we have ”leisure
school” from end of school day till 4 pm. for the youngest children.
This is voluntary, and the parents have to pay for it. .The local
home arts and crafts association also have a room in the building.
So as you can see, we have all the possibilities in the world to
bring the outside local world into our classrooms.
You probably understand that
Elvevoll "centre of education" is the rallying point of the
community, as schools in rural areas very often are.
There are a lot of
activities going on in the evenings, football practising, volleyball
and other sports groups, meetings of different kinds, community
nights” where people meet for some fun, theatre once in a while. In
addition to this, the school is the centre of assemblies at the 17th
of May – our Constitution Day – Christmas and other things.
The outdoor area is wide and varied for
different kinds of physical display. The football field is
frequently used both in school breaks and in the afternoons. A flood
– lit track for skiing is just beside the school and is just by the
local inhabitants all winter and spring.
The school also has a Sami turf hut in
the wood behaind the school. The turf hut is used for teaching
purposes, especially in the dark period when we gather around the
stove and tell each other scary stories from our ancient culture.
OUTDOOR SCHOOLING
The school year of 1998 /99 Elvevoll school started a project
called ”Outdoor schooling”. One day a week, in the current year
Thursday, we stay outside most of the school day. These days the
normal schedules are put away, and pupils and adults move their
learning arena out of the classroom.
The aim of this is:
Motto: There isn`t such a thing as bad weather, only bad clothing
This is how we`ve organized it:
During a school year there are many days spent
outdoors in different contexts. We`ve gathered these days into
a whole year – plan for Thursdays. We first gather in the
mornings for information, then we are outdoors doing our project,
then we have the last lesson indoors for finishing up.
The lunch break is always outside by the fire. We make a point
out of learning the difficult art of just sitting by the fire
without
actually doing nothing, which seems to be very hard
for many pupils (and grown-ups!) nowadays.
Resources – lessons taken from the schedeule every week: (this
changes of course every year):
1 – 4 . class :2
lessons of Norwegian, 1 lesson of science, 1 lesson art, 1 lesson
social studies and 1 lesson of maths.
5. –7. class:2 lessons science, 1
lesson Norwegian, 1 lesson art, 1 lesson P.E. and 1 lesson social
studies.
Some of the "outdoor days" are "indoors days".........of practical reasons. But it is still at least "out of your classroom-day".
A survey of the outdoor days the autumn - 05
| 25.8 | Harvesting Day |
| 1.9 | Visiting a grotto, walking through with ropes and torches |
| 8.9 | Mountain Day Mathematics by the seaside for the youngest |
| 15.9 | First Aid Day |
| 22.9 | Athletics Day |
| 29.9 | Forest Day |
| 6.10 | Camp School for 6./7.cl. Cottage sleep - over for younger |
| 13.10 | Comenius Day:Art in Nature |
| 20.10 | Weather and weather signs |
| 27.10 | |
| 3.11 | Physics Day |
| 10.11 | Domestic Science Day |
| 17.11 | Week of the School |
| 24.11 | Dark Period Day |
| 1.12 | Ordinary subjects |
| 8.12 | Excursion to Tromsø |
| 15.12 | Christmas work |
School development project:
"Small schools - big opportunities"
1. project year: reading in mixed age groups
2. project year: science in mixed age groups
3. project year: outdoor schooling
5 small rural schools in Europa have found each other and are doing a school development project together. We have teaching experiences in common: mixed age groups in the classroom. Our issue is to make teaching material to be used in rural school with mixed age groups all over Europe - and other parts of the world, for that sake....
The schools involved in the project are:
Carnalbanagh Primary School, Northern Ireland
Razbor, Slovenia
Saint-Melaine, France
Vallfogona, Spain
and of course Elvevoll, Norway....
We focus on similarities more than differences, we focus on the value of mixed age groups rather than the disadvantages.
Read more about our project on our common webpage, made by the Slovenian coordinator Aljosa Lavrinsek: http://www2.arnes.si/~ossgpo2s/Comenius/
Elvevoll school doesn`t have a
principal. The school is led by 3 teachers.
They each have 2 or 3 lessons a week to do a
principal`s work.
The duties are divided into 3 parts, and the
teachers have responsibility for one part each.
They also have 1 meeting a week to take decisions
together.
Every 3 years the duties are changed, so that
every teacher have to learn
all the parts of a principal`s job.