First IB Links Formed With Sweden

Creating links with overseas International Baccalaureate schools is one of the aims at Tollbar - and a visit to Sweden by 12 students got the project off to a good start.

The Aranasgymnasiet Sixth Form College in Kungsbacka, near Gothenburg, has more than 1700 students and has successfully delivered the IB for several years.

Unlike Tollbar the students in Sweden study IB for three years.

"In Sweden, children start English at a young age but they had to take the extra year to bring their language skills up to the standard for studying IB," Andy Brooking explained.

"We had five days in Sweden, staying with the families of students and they will be coming back here in October."

The exchange visit was arranged through Ruth Walton who taught French and German at Wintringham School and Hereford Technology School before moving to Sweden five years ago.

The aim was for Tollbar students to experience Swedish life and a full programme was organised for them, including a visit to Gothenburg.

"We didn't go into any lessons at the college but we did take part in a performance where we sang the Swedish national anthem, a song about frogs and Happy Birthday in Swedish," Michael Burns said.

The main event of the visit was graduation day where Aranasgymnasiet students drink champagne with their families in the morning before going into college.

"It's a big day in Sweden," Andy explained. "The students run out of class into the streets to celebrate being free from school and go out on decorated trucks and parade around the town."

"Then they have a dinner in the evening and we helped arrange the tables and served at this. About 500 graduated on the day we were there."

The students found that Kungsbacka was similar in size to Grimsby.

"The town has about 80,000 people but it's more sprawling than Grimsby and there's a lot of building going on, mainly because much of it was damaged by fire in the 1980s," Jade Auckland said.

"We found out quite a lot about Swedish life and also that teachers don't get paid as much in Sweden as they do in England. The college is quite modern, only a few years old and it won an award for architecture."

All but one of the Swedish IB students will come to Tollbar later this year - the student whose family hosted Jade is going to study IB in Costa Rica - and sixth form staff are now planning a programme for this return visit.