KEEP SWEDEN TIDY - Håll Sverige Rent

put it in their mouth. The ones who put
it in their mouths won, but it did get
a bit cold!” says twelve year old Alma
Engblad.
For a long time, the teachers at the
school had wanted to work more specifically
with environmental questions.
The only problem was to find a way
to break down statements such as “We
will take care of the environment” into
concrete objectives that they would be
able to communicate to the pupils.”
“We did not know how to begin. We
had ideas about what we wanted to do,
but we found it difficult to tie it together
in a good way,” says Camilla Lundmark.
A colleague of hers found the Eco
Schools programme on the web.
“The Eco-Schools programme was
perfect for us; it was exactly what we
were looking for. It had specific goals
to work with,” says Camilla Lundmark.
the arentorp school has worked with
the Eco-Schools programme for ten years.
Every year, when it’s time to choose a
new theme, a couple of pupils from the
Environmental Council, together with
Camilla Lundmark, consult the webpage
of the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation to
get suggestions and ideas about how to
work with each theme. Later, they will
present different suggestions to teachers
and pupils in the combined Environmental
and Student Council, who will make
a decision.
Before starting to work with the theme,
the school sends an action plan to be approved
by the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation.
“Then they usually come up with
thoughts and ideas on how to develop it
further. The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation
also comments on the final report,
giving us good advice and ideas of how
to go about it next time.”
Ten years of working with the Eco-
Schools programme has changed the way
that the teachers at the school think.
“The Eco-Schools programme helps us
to concretize the environmental objectives,
but now we have But we have done this
so many times so we have created a way
of thinking.”
According to Camilla, the most demanding
part of the Eco Schools work
is the documentation. However, working
with the Eco-Schools programme does not
Safety in School – an Impetus
Anna-Karin Karlsson is devoted to
increasing the feeling of safety at the
school.
“I love working with basic values. I
want the children to feel good inside.
They should not have to feel insecure
and unsafe when they are at school.”
During a re-organization in 2009,
the Arentorp School introduced daily
EQ-hours within the mentor groups.
That means that every day they will
talk about things that have happened
and about how to behave among each
other. Anna-Karin Karlsson works as a
leisure time pedagogue. She is also a
member of the School Safety Team and
has coordinated all the work with basic
values on the school.
“When there is a dialogue about
things that happen and about the way
we treat each other, the children feel safer
and are able to focus on the school
work the rest of the time. It is hard to
learn something if your head is full of
worries,” says Anna-Karin Karlsson.
The Arentorp School won first prize
in a competition arranged by the Keep
Sweden Tidy Foundation and Länsförsäkringar
within the Com-U project
“We care”. The school won partly
because of its well considered cooperation
between parents, children and staff
but also for its work regarding safe and
unsafe places on the school grounds.
Four times a year, the children answer
a survey about where they feel unsafe
in the school building and on the school
grounds. The survey includes a map
where the pupils mark the places they
perceive as unsafe with a cross. The
result is then displayed on a Styrofoam
model of the school.
“How did you come up with that
idea?”
“I was thinking that there must be a
way for school prefects and monitors to
know where the children don’t feel safe
at the school grounds, so they can keep
increase the general workload for her and
her colleagues.
“A lot of the work that we put in to the
documentation within Eco-Schools can be
an extra eye there. It was really easy to
make the model; I just used the fire protection
plan as a base. We have used it
for many years now.”
However, the work with safe and
unsafe places does not end with putting
needles on a Styrofoam model. In a
survey last year, all of
a sudden there were
eleven marks by a
copse of trees on the
school yard.
“We do the survey to
bring problems to the
surface, and then we
must go on and solve
them. By the copse, Name: Annawe
kept some logs that Karin Karlsson
Age: 37 years
were used for building
Lives: Arentorp
little houses. The chil- Family: Yes,
dren often fell out over husband and
them, and many bad two daughters.
things aroused from Best advice on
how to create
that,” says Anna-Karin
a safe school:
Karlsson.
Simply, to care.
The logs were
removed, and the situation was also
discussed in the mentor groups. In the
next survey, the result showed.
“All the eleven crosses were gone.
There was simply no one feeling unsafe
there anymore. The children should feel
good and safe when they are here; we
always have to be here for them and
always do what we can.”
“What motivates you to do that bit
extra every day?”
“I like this communication with the
children, what is going on in their heads
at these ages; the social interaction, to
be able to work with that. It’s exciting.”
“What would happen if you would
stop working like this?”
“We have to talk about how we treat
each other and be reminded of it every
day. I have worked at this school for 15
years, and I have never dared to try not
working like this.” a
copied directly into our Quality Report.
We can also use part of it in our Equal
Treatment Plan. So they are texts we need
to write anyway.” a
school and preschool/inspiration – the keep sweden tidy foundation 19