School Blog

Here is a little information regarding school start and what's happening during the autumn term.

New classes are published on SchoolSoft:     August 8th

Registration: August 15th                                  Grade 4      9:00 - 11:00

                                                                               Grade 5 and 6  9:30 - 11:30

                                                                               Grade 7 - 9    10:00 - 12:00

Mentor and House Days                                    August 16th-17th 9:00 - 15:00

Parent Meeting: August 30th                            17:00 - 19:00 Parent representatives
                                                                               chosen

Autumn Break week 44                                      October 29th - November 2nd

Development Talk evening                                November 14th 15:00 - 18:30

Student Choice                                                     December 17th-19th Times vary
                                                                                depending on selection

Christmas End of Term                                       December 20th

More than 3,300 tassels passed from right to left and thousands of bright blue mortarboards were sent spinning through the air as students from IES schools throughout Sweden graduated from year nine.

The graduation ceremony is a right of passage for students at Internationella Engelska Skolan to mark their achievements over several vital years of education.

The details of the ceremony can vary from school to school; do they sing both Den Blomstertid Nu Kommer and Du Gamla Du Fria? Do they throw their hats? How many student performances are there? What percentage of the teachers feel a lump in their throat and a tear in their eye?

What is the same, at every IES school, is the celebration of the achievements of the students, where each student will receive a certificate marking the years of hard work they have put in.

High-achieving students are recognised for the best performance in a subject or for the leadership and citizenship that they have shown. 

At IES Skärholmen, Principal Alexandra Ohlén, said: “All of our year nines have the grades they need to get into gymnasium.  Every single one of you has done this.  You have pushed yourself to the limit and you have also helped each other when it was feeling a bit rough.  Right now some of you might be sitting here feeling ‘I don’t know if I deserve this.’ Well, that’s not true.  Some of you are sitting here thinking ‘I kind of deserve it but it is mostly thanks to my teachers’ and of course there is some truth of that, we have excellent teachers, but still mostly this is thanks to you and your efforts, and also because of your families.  I know you are all teenagers and maybe your families are not the ones who you are in love with all the time, but today they deserve your hugs.”

 

The three students from the school with the best results were awarded the right to give a valedictorian’s speech. Together they chose the topic of success to tie their speeches together.

The first of them, Tova Willborg, 9A, said:  “Success, in Swedish the word success translates to framgång, and if you translate that back to English it means walking forward. success is just that, walking forward, no matter the direction. I consider all of us to be successful, moving forward is what we all have done and are about to do again.”

Following her, Ali Talib, 9C, said: “I will talk about success and how I perceive success.  I don’t think that money and grades are so important, because they won’t help you, they won’t save you from difficult situations without knowledge.  Knowledge is important, we need to learn. The most important is experience.”

The third valedictorian My Danvind, 9D, added: “There are three steps to making a society truly successful, the first step we can and should make is tolerance and respect  Tolerance of religions other than your own, of cultures other than your own, ethnicities that you perhaps didn’t even know existed.

“One good example of this is pride.  People might argue that it is unnecessary and why isn’t there a straight pride? Well, that is simply because pride was born for a need for basic human rights, which straight people have always possessed. LBTQ+ people still don’t have them in many countries today.”

As this year’s grade nine students across Sweden move on to fresh challenges, with the best wishes of the staff at their schools, year eight will now step up and seize the chance to find their own success in their last year of compulsory education.

It feels great to be back at school after such hot and nice summer. We have been busy preparing for the school year. We will spend this first week building the foundations for working with equality in school. The standard timetable begins on Monday 20th August.

Renovations and Improvements
We have built a small group room in the grade 4 corridor and blocked an area around the gym hall to make those who wish to shower after PE lessons feel secure in doing so. We have also booked more time in Sätrahallen so that Grade 7 can have PE lessons there instead. This freed more time in our own gym so the other students have more time to get changed and prepare for their lesson. We do not have more information about the proposed expansion to the school yard yet but you will be informed as soon as we do.

Longer open hours for free breakfast
The option of free breakfast will continue this year with longer open hours(now 7.30 - 8.15) to suit the new schedule. Parents are always welcome to both breakfast and lunch when visiting!.

Personal Computers for Grade 8 and 9
Last year we successfully tested personal computers for grade 9. Our insurance provider does not allow for them to be taken from school and now we will try the same thing for grade 8!

Programming is timetabled for half-classes
The curriculum has changed so that programming now constitutes a larger part of education in school. Due to this change, we have qualified mathematics teachers teaching lessons in programming. We hope that this will help to develop our students’ ability to think logically and inspire a greater interest in mathematics.

GDPR/SchoolSoft
Our compliance with GDPR means that some of the functionality of SchoolSoft has changed. Essentially, parents will only be able to access class list and other information about their own child. We had to make this change in order to comply with GDPR.

Results and the school's operational goals
100 % of our student qualified for gymnasiet last year! In order to improve other areas of the school we have aligned our school targets with the Student Council groups:

Theme of the goal                                                        Student influence group

Physical and mental health                                           Food Council

Higher expectations in verbal                                       Equal Rights Group
communication

Consistent teaching and learning                                Academic Ambassadors

Calm and Safe environment                                         Student Council

We look forward to a great year together! Principal Alexandra Ohlén

IES Skärholmen Student Choice 2018 consisted of 19 groups and went on for three days. We had all sorts of activities within athletics, academics, attitude and aestetics. These three days were organized by our amazing Head's of Houses, Ms Jenkins, Mr Yaro, Mr  Armstrong and Mr Dawod.

9C in Rålambshovsparken

Senior School History Mysteries at Medeltidsmuseet with Mr Haddad and Ms Partsinevelou

Senior School History Mysteries at Riksdagen with Mr Haddad and Ms Partsinevelou

Robots with Mr German and Mr Zijlmans

Marvel Movie Marathon with Ms Chaouch and Ms McLaughlin

World Peace Game with Mr Dawod and Mr Saville

Sightseeing in Stockholm with Ms Söderberg, Mr Gordon and Mr Anoop

Basketball, Kickball & Beach with Ms Jonsson and Mr Salampasis