Presented at ISCEI conference 2003 Sydney Australia
Hellerup School - A novel teaching paradigm in Denmark
By
Anker Mikkelsen
Headmaster, MPM
Hellerup School - A novel teaching paradigm in Denmark
Summary
This paper presents a paradigm shift in Danish pedagogical thinking. It illustrates how theories on learning and pedagogy can be applied actively to the architecture and furnishing of a school. Theories from Sweden, Italy and the USA underlie the design of Hellerup School in Denmark. A synthesis of these theories and the school's moulding thereof is known as "Hellerup pedagogy". Not only the flexible learning space, but also the pedagogical mindset has become trendsetters for Danish, Swedish and Norwegian pedagogical thinking.
Examples are given of everyday structures for pupils and teachers and of how cooperation with the parents yields teaching based on log-books.
Context
At the end of the 1990s, it was clear that the number of children would rise considerably and that many municipalities would face school capacity problems. Gentofte Municipality decided to establish a project organisation to provide both physical and structural leadership for its school system. Gentofte, lying just north of Copenhagen, boasts a high concentration of knowledge with it’s well educated and well off population. The task was, via a development process, to rebuild 10 schools, build one new school and to create a pedagogical model for all the schools - a model school system.
Those concerned chose to evaluate the school's practice and to propose valid methods and hypotheses for building a school where creativity and learning would go naturally hand in hand.
Fundamental Visions for the Construction
Hellerup School - the new school - is constructed as a network where physical and psychic distances are minimised through simple and direct communication routes running in all directions from a given point.
The Relationship between pedagogic and Space
The school's pedagogy is based on theories from Sweden, Italy and the USA, taking the individual child as starting point; the concept is known as "Hellerup pedagogy".
The school is planned with nine home areas. A typical home area comprises facilities for 75 pupils, taught by a team of teachers.
The home area has 4 main functions which can all be used by whole classes, teams or groups of pupils.
The training zone, lying outermost in the building is sub-divided into 3 areas by furniture such as cupboards, shelves, or even walls. The training zone offers a framework for class, team or group teaching, but also for individual study.
The home base lies between the training zone and the centre of the building. Each home area has 3 bases, meeting places for class social activities such as reading, story-telling or conversation.
The common area is the innermost closest to the centre of the building, contiguous for the whole home area.
The mini-auditorium is centrally placed in all home areas and so fitted out as to invite spontaneous use when pupils give presentations for one another. Pupils' productions are a major component in the school's basic pedagogy and most frequently take place in the mini-auditorium. The home area is furnished at the beginning of the year, but the lay-out can be changed during the year, so as always be adapted to the teaching.
Furniture is not just functional, but also serves as spatial dividers to promote the flexible learning environment which is the pre-requisite for the Hellerup pedagogy.
Historical background
Since the first law on the folkeskole in Denmark was adopted in 1814, teaching and school attendance have enjoyed a very high priority in Danish society. With time, the school has undergone many fundamental changes, always reflecting social development in Denmark. Earlier, learning by rote and individual examinations predominated. Pupils should be brought up to know their place in society and to show humility and defence. Around 1900, class teaching and class examinations were introduced, according to a philosophy whereby the individual's integrity should be more highly considered. It was accepted that there should be less focus on the individual's performance. Today, the central concept is understanding and interpreting. The pupil has to learn to seek and sort information and place things in the right context. This modified demand on pupils' learning means that the demand on the school is focused on professional learning and the development of the pupil's personal competence.
The Danish primary School – one comprehensive sequence for 6 –16 year olds.
The Danish primary school comprises a comprehensive compulsory school sequence from 1st to 9th class.
It also includes a voluntary kindergarten class and a voluntary 10th school year. The direction of the primary school, its organisation and teaching, are set out in the Primary School Act of 1993.
Management and direction
The municipal council is ultimately responsible for the educational system in a given municipality and is obliged to establish the extent to which delegation of decision-making competence and other controls are to be laid down in a statute. The municipal council may choose to delegate part of its powers to the individual schools, e.g. decisions on the more detailed use of the school’s framework grant and its powers to appoint staff. On the other hand the authority to dismiss cannot be delegated, which means that neither the school board[1] nor the school head can dismiss teachers without the approval of the municipal council.
The individual school is managed by a head teacher who has both the administrative and educational management of the school and answers to the school board and the municipal council for the schoolwork. In addition (s)he is to carry out his/her work in cooperation with the employees and include the school’s pupils in matters appertaining to the health and safety of the pupils. As regards teaching the head is to ensure that the teachers plan and structure the class work with challenges for all pupils.
Supervision
It is also the municipal council in the individual municipality that supervises the work of the schools. The supervision includes both administrative and educational work. There are no detailed provisions as to extent and character of the municipal supervision. As often as not the municipal supervision of the educational work in the schools is exercised relatively informally, e.g. through educational advisers whose function is primarily advisory and coordinating in relation to the schools.
Complaints about the school’s work are also to be directed to the municipal council but complaints rarely get beyond the administrative level.
Nor is there any tradition for any proper “educational inspection” or evaluations of the general school practice being carried out by the municipalities. In the latter years increasingly more municipalities have been tending to adopt a strategy of overall municipal school policy combined with a considerable degree of decentralisation for the individual school. This is frequently followed up by a demand that the schools draw up working plans encompassing partly a report on the school’s work in the previous year and partly a development plan for the coming year. The working plan is in some instances made the subject of a talk between the municipal executive for schools and the head teacher, though this is not generally formalised. And three is nothing laid down nationally about producing working plans.
The organisation of the Teaching
The Primary School Act of 1993 elaborates the distinctive Danish principle about the class being the principal unit with the class teacher as the coordinator for all matters relating to the class. The maximum number of pupils in a class is 28. The subjects are traditional, but the Act specifies that the subjects be to be treated specifically and with subjects and problems on a cross-disciplinary basis. This means that the pupils are taught all obligatory subjects in the same class from 1st – 9th class.
A team of teachers with different professional qualifications do the teaching of the subjects, and this team is obliged to collaborate on the structuring of the class work. Normally the same teacher teaches the class one subject over a period of 5 –9 years.
Fundamental principles for the Teaching
The law prescribes that the primary school is a unified (comprehensive) school where the pupils are not to be split up on ability and results. Pursuing this principle it lays down differentiated teaching formulated this way: ‘The structuring of the teaching, hereunder choice of teaching- and work procedures, methods, teaching aids and selection of material shall in all subjects live up to the purpose of the primary school and shall be varied so that it matches the needs and qualifications of each individual pupil’ and ‘At each class level and in each subject teacher and pupil are to cooperate continuously on establishing the objectives they seek to achieve’. These two requirements have to be combined with an ongoing evaluation of what the pupils have learned as a basis for the further planning of the teaching.
The Act also contains provisions to the effect that all pupils are to be offered national and local exams in text comprehension, written formulation, mathematics, languages, and physics/chemistry at the close of the 9th and 10th school year. Apart from the above mentioned there are no national exams in the compulsory school sequence. On the other hand the act seeks to introduce project work throughout the school programme, and in the 9th class all pupils have to work out a project to be marked locally. Also the individual pupil from the 6th class works with a career training book adjusted in step with his/her work and leading to a personal training plan in 9th class – a plan based on the pupil’s own resources and capabilities.
The Teaching content
When the Act came into effect the teaching content was laid down through a hierarchy of documents so that certain binding aims and central knowledge and skills were established nationally for all subjects, whereas guiding syllabuses and teaching guides were sent out to municipalities and schools. The municipalities were thus committed to drawing up syllabuses for the individual subjects and to ensuring the implementation of the law. The Act and its associated documents are based on a target- and framework control model that makes allowance for the power sharing between state and municipality.
Implementation of the Act
During the first half of the nineties a number of results- unsatisfactory for Denmark - from international surveys of reading, mathematics and science skills were published. This meant that the implementation of the new Act was somewhat neglected in many places favouring an increased focus, particularly on the teaching of the subject, reading, and the municipalities spent many resources on improving their efforts in this field.
In the years after the new Act came into force it was obvious that the law had had no impact. Hence it was decided in 1996-97 to start a sweeping development programme to kick-start the desired development. The development project was concluded with a national evaluation in 2000 that proved that the programme had indeed moved the development in large parts of the designated fields.
The focus on the professionalism, introduced by the international surveys, continued concurrently and ended in 2001/02 with the government accepting a programme to strengthen the professionalism under the title “Clear goals”. The key part of this programme was a reformulation of the central knowledge- and skill areas for the individual subjects plus advisory part goals expressing “expectations of what the pupils know and can do within the different areas of the subject.” at the conclusion of the various class levels starting with 2nd class.
Originally these goals were guiding for the municipalities, though they were obliged to work out part goals or alternatively adopt the part goals as applicable. In the autumn of 2002 these part goals became part of a compromise agreement between the government and part of the opposition, changing from guiding to becoming applicable, so that the primary school in Denmark now has national step goals for the subjects and for the school’s responsibility for the all round personal development of the pupils. Henceforth the municipalities are under obligation to draw up descriptions of the progress between the individual step- goals and up to the final goals for the individual subjects.
The political settlement also has a number of organisational changes incorporated aimed at supporting the implementation of the act of 1993.
The Vision for Hellerup School
In 1998 the city council approved of ”The aim of the educational system of the city council of Gentofte 1998-2002”, which among other things in detail describes the superior aims for the educational system, aims for the educational areas and aims for the physical frames.
The aims refer to the Primary Education Act of 1993 which among others things brings into focus the individual student, educational streaming, and the improvement of general qualifications.
In connection with the budget of 1999 the city council of Gentofte agreed on earmarking an allowance to improve and modernize the educational system until 2006. The decision was based on prognoses and analyses made in 1997 and 1998.
On March 29th 1999 the city council decided to place school number 11 in Hellerup, on November 29th the same year the city council agreed on a supplementary grant to prepare the building program of the school. Quite naturally being situated in Hellerup the school was named Hellerup School.