Lea Luodes teaches English at the Amuri School in Tampere. For now, foreign-born pupils—hailing from South Korea, Japan and India—sit in a special classroom for foreigners, but they may soon be enrolled at an all-English school tied to Amuri.
”Crafts and math are my favourite subjects,” says Sandy, a first grader who calls her teacher Miss Lea—a break from tradition at Finnish schools where kids call teachers by their first name.
Pia Mikkola, the principal at Amuri, says large companies and universities are drawing foreign families to the Tampere region. According to Mikkola, families living in Finland temporarily do not see the point of enrolling their kids in regular Finnish schools to learn Finnish.
Finland’s English-language primary schools all operate differently, with some taking the lead from the IB (International Baccalaureate) curriculum. But in Tampere, teachers and education officials are planning the new curriculum from scratch, with the aim of uniting the best of the Finnish school system with that of British and American traditions.
The all-English Amuri School is expected to open its doors in three years.
