Salient point: the mission was to find a good school that corresponds with our wishes and those of the boys. It was soon decided that the best time to travel to Sweden would be during the Dutch half-term break so that we could also enjoy a short holiday at the same time.
In September we contacted four different free schools (“friskola”). All four intimated that we would be welcome to visit. The Swedish autumn break always falls in the last week of October. That meant that at the time of our visits all the schools were open which naturally helped to give us the best possible impression of the education system in that country.
Two of the schools were situated near to the small city of Åmal whilst the other two scheduled visits were to schools located to the northeast of Karlstad. They were all “friskolor” which means to say: governed by parents and not by the kommun, but inevitably subject to periodic municipal rounds of inspection. Since in the Netherlands we consciously opted for the Freinet (i.e. the Modern School Movement) education system – also originally a parent-participation system – we wanted to find something similar in Sweden.
On Saturday 14th October we arrived in Kiel and were able to drive on board the Stena Scandinavica at the end of the afternoon. On Sunday 15th October we were awoken by Swedish sunshine. The beautiful autumn colours of the trees were truly splendid and, of course, the season was more advanced than in the Netherlands. It seemed as if Sweden had put on its best show of colours just for us and so we felt welcome.
The first house that we stayed in was an Airbnb rented out by a man known as Andreas, a person of our age with a young family and domiciled in the countryside at Lövhöjden. He was very welcoming and interested to hear all about us. We had a number of conversations with him. During the week as a whole around 95% of the conversations we had were in Swedish. It was encouraging to see how far we both got and, as with all language learners it was great to be able to put our skills into practice! Andreas was very positive about the village of Molkom where we were planning to visit the Backa Friskola, some 25 mins drive away from our holiday location. According to him it is a place inhabited by people who are generally very active and involved in all sorts of social initiatives and there is good mix of locals and newcomers.
Very soon after having gone around all the schools it became clear to us that we would settle for the Backa Friskola in Molkom. Already after the first e-mail contact with them we had been enthused and after have been shown around the premises we were soon certain that it would be the right school. Perhaps most important of all, we noticed that our sons were relaxed during the visit and immediately enjoyed playing there, something that was much less apparent when we went to the other schools.
Recently, having listened to a podcast about a family that had moved to Sweden last summer, a friend of ours commented that much of what was said was linked to “feeling”; to what did or did not feel right. That struck a chord with us because surely it is all very bound up with how you feel or sense matters; with first impressions as there is no other frame of reference. We cannot turn to family or friends to ask what they think about a certain school or place.
At the same time that is what is so fascinating about this adventure: it addresses much more our inner compass and intuition and much less the rationality which up until now we have both so often depended on in life. Indeed, in our familiar Dutch surroundings one can achieve a lot by slipping into automatic pilot mode precisely because everything is so familiar. How pleasing to be able to experience such a development in our lives! For us the whole venture cannot fail. The mere gaining of such insight is a journey of experience in itself!
We enjoyed the week’s holiday: the autumn shades, the frost, the first snowfall, the walks and the warm welcome we received at all the schools.
