Torskolan

Our school

Our school, Torskolan, is in south Sweden in a village called Torsås. It is very near the east coast right between the two cities Kalmar and Karskrona. Our school is a state-school and the students are 13-16 years. We are only about 300 at the senior level so all the students and teachers know each other well.


Optional Time

We start school at 8.00 every morning and finish at 15.00. Many of our children come here by school bus. They have six periods every day and they are most often 60 minutes long. At our school we have something that is called Optional Time. In these classes our students can choose among different subjects. One of the intentions for the optional classes is that the children should learn to take responsibility for their learning and studies. They work much by themselves and the teachers are more like tutors.


Foreign languages

Most of our pupils learn two foreign languages - English and German/ French. I think that Swedish young people are very good at English. They learn a lot from music, computers and most of all TV.


School lunch

Here in Sweden all students get free lunches. They are served in the canteen and I think the food is very tasty considering that it is an institutional kitchen. In our school we also have a recreation centre with a cafeteria. Many children go there in their breaks to meet their friends, play table tennis or billiards. In the cafeteria they can buy freshly baked rolls (the students help to bake them), soft drinks and fruit. It is very good to have such a meeting-place for the kids.


Grades

Swedish students get their first grades when they finish the autumn term in grade 8. There are three different grades G, VG and MVG. They get G if they have managed the course, a VG if they have done well and a MVG if they have done excellent.


Terms

We have two terms in Sweden: autumn term and spring term. Spring term is this year from 9 Jan. to 16 June. Then we have summer vacations for about 8 weeks. Other holidays are sports holiday (in February), autumn holiday (in November) and Easter holiday (most often in April). All of them are for one week.


Homework

Our students have some homework to do every day. Some of them work hard and others work less. They don't get punished if they haven't done it. But actually they have already punished themselves because you need to work hard if you want to do well in school.