NEWS
In the past week HundrED had the opportunity to link amazing people in education from Finland and France as The School Project’s Maxime Faguer and Stéphane Le Viet visited our office and met with Finland’s visionaries from a variety of educational spectrums.
The driven School Project duo is on a mission to create a modern kindergarten followed by a primary school in Paris next year. In seeking great educational ideas, they made the trip to Helsinki to learn more about Finland’s system and innovative approaches in schools, organizations and other.
The conversation was fruitful and inspiring as we agreed that the need for new twenty-first century schools is a globally present question, although an overwhelming one to tackle with all the exciting options to leverage from.
In this case, we began by visiting the local bilingual school Lycée franco-finlandais d’Helsinki where we met with Pihla Honka-Aho to discuss early childhood education.
The next day the brilliant women of Hello Ruby - Linda Liukas and Jemina Lehmuskoski - received us as their guests to speak on behalf of teaching computational thinking skills, after which Counsellor Anneli Rautiainen, head of basic education at the Finnish Board of Education, answered questions regarding the Finnish education system, the new national core curriculum and the processes involved. The second day finished off with a presentation by HundrED’s Creative Director Saku Tuominen.
On the third day Professor Kristiina Kumpulainen at The Playful Learning Center introduced us to the research of ‘learning through play’ and the beauty of exciting learning environments.
To end the week we were welcomed to the Saunalahti Comprehensive School in Espoo by Principal Hanna Sarakorpi. The school is not only a forward example on how to design futureschool buildings and develop pupil assessment, but is also renowned for their incredible operative culture and commitment to Positive Education.
A big thank you to everyone involved for this remarkable opportunity to learn more about your work and good luck to The School Project - we are excited to follow the process!