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About two years ago, the Norwegian independent school group Dibber bought Norrvikens skola, a primary school with almost 300 students in Sollentuna.
The minister: the Swede must have an important position in the school
Dibber is one of Norway’s largest school groups, running 14 schools in Sweden and receiving more than SEK 33 million in grants from the Swedish government last year, in addition to school fees.
Dibber also runs around 70 preschool centers in Sweden.
In February this year, the parents and students of the Norrviken school were summoned to an information meeting where the management said that the school will change its name to Dibber international Sollentuna starting this fall.
The school would have an international profile with teachers gradually starting to teach English in all subjects except Swedish, parents were told.
As soon as Dibber international opens in Sollentuna, Dibber international starts in Helsingborg with the same concept.
The purpose of the international the profile is to attract new groups of students, according to the school’s principal Sara Lundberg.
– Because it is demanded today by both students and tutors. You become more of a citizen of the world, he says.
The long-term goal is to follow the Swedish curriculum at the same time as an international curriculum called IB, in which you switch to some teaching in English, says Sara Lundberg.
– What we wanted to do when we took over the school was to find a new profile and maybe attract other groups of students.
Dibber international Sollentuna
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
At the February meeting it was negotiated the information that the transition would take place step by step.
– It felt quite safe, there would be no major changes, maybe one lesson a week that would be in English, says Erika Gulliksson, who has an eleven-year-old son at the school.
We found her outside the school together with two other parents who are part of a small group that reported the school to the Swedish School Inspectorate.
In late spring and summer, the school began to recruit teachers from different parts of the world who had worked in international schools and who were interested in coming to Sweden.
So when students who went to high school came to school after the summer, they had teachers in NO, SO, and math who not only taught English, but couldn’t speak a word of Swedish.
– Our children came home and were very surprised, “Dad, everything is in English and I don’t understand anything,” says Jonas Sandberg, who has an eleven-year-old son at school.
It feels like they’re using our kids in an experiment, says Erika Gulliksson.
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
Your child’s teacher in assignments NO and mathematics came from the Netherlands, but was taught in English, and the teacher for the SW subjects used English with a strong Indian accent.
– It was practically all subjects except Swedish and sports, says Jonas and says that his son has cried and said that “I am a fool who does not understand”.
Ulrika Enocksson, who has an 11-year-old son in the same class, says her son had a panic attack in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe.
He had been home from school for a few days and when he returned to class he had tried to figure out what he had missed and needed to catch up.
– He cried when he got home, and at first we didn’t understand what it was.
Jonas Sandberg’s son came home from school and cried because he didn’t understand what the teachers were saying.
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
But after the panic attack He told the boy how desperate he had been when he tried to find out what others had done to catch up.
“I couldn’t ask because I didn’t know how to say it,” he explained to his parents.
– The teacher had also forbidden the students to speak Swedish among themselves in the lessons, so it was really difficult, says Ulrika Enocksson.
The children lost not only the desire to go to school, but also their self-esteem, parents say.
After a week or so, they contacted the director and received an answer that they would review the situation. But then silence fell and the director became unapproachable, according to Jonas Sandberg.
A few weeks after classes begin, parents begin to feel that they have not been misinformed, but rather misled.
– It was never thought that there would be a gradual transition to English, the plan was to start with a steel bath right away, says Jonas Sandberg.
Ulrika Enocksson’s 11-year-old son had a panic attack because he couldn’t make himself understood.
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
So parents still believed that the school was allowed to teach in English, but that it violated that permission.
Because even if the school had a permit, a maximum of 50 percent of teaching in a Swedish primary school can be in English. The reason is that all children should have the opportunity to continue teaching.
Children must also bring with them all the Swedish concepts they need to be able to achieve the knowledge objectives found in the Swedish curriculum.
This means that the teacher sometimes has to explain different words and concepts in both Swedish and English.
When parents in early September find out that the school doesn’t even have a permit to teach in English, they don’t send a report to the Swedish School Inspectorate.
– we had lived in the show that the school has at least thought about this. But the only vision is that everyone should speak English and that it can cost whatever it wants, says Jonas Sandberg.
Only on September 7, after parents registered Dibber International in Sollentuna, the school sends an application to be able to teach in English.
So does the international school in Helsingborg, which also started without a permit.
The school’s principal, Sara Lundberg, says they hadn’t had time before because there was great search pressure for the school.
– Great interest brought us to bed. But with the results in hand, we should have done it already this spring, says Sara Lundberg.
Erika Gulliksson, Jonas Sandberg and Ulrika Enocksson have reported their children’s school to the Swedish School Inspectorate.
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
We have met parents who say it was too difficult for their children, how do you see their criticism?
– That it was unfortunate during the first weeks, it was not as it should be, says Sara Lundberg.
While waiting for permission, the school has deployed “staff who support, interpret or deliver the lessons” in parallel with teachers who cannot speak anything but English, according to Sara Lundberg.
Parents we know say who intend to continue fighting so that the school is good and that their children can continue.
The oversight of independent schools needs to be stricter so that similar things don’t happen elsewhere, they say.
– Control is the precondition for the Swedish system to function with independent schools and for those who break the law to be punished.
Nor is it easy to move their children, they say.
– If it continues like this, of course we must. But this is where we live, the children have always gone to this school, this is where they have their friends.
