Finland Comes to England - Secondary
Maija Flinkman, deputy head and teacher of biology and geography at a secondary school in Finland, visits a south London girls' state comprehensive school to teach science.
She's going to spend a week at the school, teaching a busy timetable of science across different year groups and abilities, using resources and lesson plans provided by the school.
Finland is top of the league table in science teaching, whereas England has slumped to 14th place. Will Maija's week in south London provide any insight into why Finland's approach to learning is more successful than England's?
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FacebookPip Jones on 17 April 2008
I felt it would have been more useful to have a greater contrast with teaching techniques in Finland. We know what the p ...
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- Duration: 30:00 minutes
- Published: 21 January 2008
- Licence information for Finland Comes to England - Secondary
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Virtual Finland: Education & Research Two leading priorities in this post-industrial society where educational standards are among the world's highest
Global Gateway DfES funded site to promote the forging of international links
TeacherNet: Teachers' International Professional Development More information on the programme that encourages teachers to participate in study visits to other countries
British Council: Learning UK international charity for cultural relations and educational opportunities
EIRO: Education Education sector search page from the European Industrial Relations Observatory
The Finnish PISA 2006 Information on the Programme for International Student Assessment
Comments
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Director of Studies17 April 2008 - 09:09I felt it would have been more useful to have a greater contrast with teaching techniques in Finland. We know what the problems are here but it would be good to have more information about Finland
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Re : I agree very little was22 April 2008 - 06:35I agree very little was revealed about Finnish education except the students are quieter and the learning sessions longer to encourage deeper thought.
I couldn't see much to prove the Finnish teachers comment about lack of renovation. The English school had a data projector and science materials. The Finnish school had the same; except I saw a chalkboard too! The Finnish desks where whiter and flexible and they didn't have heaters at the end to burn themselves on.
I did notice that in the home of Nokia the students had fewer phones in class to distract them unlike the English school.
I suspect that education in Finland is more successful for other reasons than 'modern classrooms'.
I would like to know more about resources, hours per day, per year, subjects studied.
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Re : More about Finnish education28 April 2008 - 13:39Thanks for your comments - we do have more programmes that look at the finnish education system if you'd like to know more:
Finland - Primary ICT - Natural Connections
http://www.teachers.tv/video/4977
Finland - Secondary Science - The Fishing Line
http://www.teachers.tv/video/4976
With links to more programmes in the series in the 'related videos' section (just before the comments)
Regards,
Luke Harvey, Teachers TV Community Producer
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