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[efemmera]

Has anyone heard of this school? It is a bilingual Montessori in Stockholm. Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

[CanadianinStockholm]

I have worked for this school and want to warn others thinking of working there.

Though the school says it is a Montessori school, as far as I know there were no Montessori trained teachers working there, including myself, nor any training in Montessori teaching methods.

I had a class of 18-20 five and six year-olds on my own, though Swedish law requires there to be two teachers for this number of students. New students were regularly brought into the class any time during the day with no warning to the teacher, not even being given their name. This is very difficult when a new student speaks neither English nor Swedish, and you are using students who speak other languages to find out the new students name, that is in the case where there were other students who spoke their home language. I would go to reception, they wouldn't have a copy of the child's name either, so I would have to go to the bus driver who drove them and try to get it from them. Also, many times I was responsible for updating the student lists, rather than having an administration responsible for this, and submitted these lists many times, though administration seemed to keep losing them.

I also taught English for grade 8-9 a few times per week. The principal would occasionally come in SHOUTING at students, for example if the class room was too messy in his opinion or the students had their shoes on (students are required to remove their shoes before entering the classroom).

The school advertises a bus shuttle service for students to and from school. On Friday's my class would go swimming. Bus drivers would drive before everyone was sitting and had their seatbelts on. Though I reminded them that seatbelts needed to be warn by the children, I needed to keep reminding the drivers of this EVERY time I was in the bus or came out to check on the children. I was pregnant at the time and the drivers would always start driving while I was getting the kid's seatbelts on.

Also, on one evening while I was leaving the school for the day, one of my female students (five years old) was standing on the sidewalk alone. She had been forgotten to be taken in the bus. It was getting dark out and I don't need to explain why this is dangerous.

On an outing to a playland at a mall, upon pick up our minibus was parked at the other side of a busy parking lot to the entrance. I needed to call the driver's mobile phone to ask him to come nearer. He got upset and asked why, I therefore needed to explain the dangers of walking a group of 20 five and six year olds across a busy parking lot and that it would be much safer if he could just drive up (why not?)

The school rules say no mobile phone use by students and in a teacher meeting the principal encouraged us to enforce these rules. One day, while lining my kid's up to go outside for recess, an older student came in yelling into his mobile phone. While asking him to put his phone away he attacked me and hit me in the stomach (remember, I was pregnant at the time so this was very scary). I called for a male teacher nearby who came and took the boy off of me. I went immediately to the principal's office who said that he would take care of the situation. Later, the boy was brought to me to apologize. I returned to the principal to ask if the parents had been contacted and what the disciplinary action would be. The principal brushed me off, saying that the boy came from a difficult family and didn't want to make matters worse. I said that there needed to be consequences, that I was okay but that it had been a dangerous situation for me. He did nothing. So, I brought the matter up with some teachers who had been working at the school for a while. When they asked the principal why he didn't do anything, that it was a serious matter as the boy had attacked other students before, he told them that I had never told him what had happened! He also told me to my face that I never told him what had happened, needless to say I was stunned.

Also, if you work for this school be prepared to go through a lot of trouble to get your salary. My salary was not paid on time at least four times and I know others with similar problems, and I am currently still waiting for my vacation pay, which the principal first said that he would pay August 25, and then September 25th, and then October 5th. In my experience you need to be very proactive to get your pay at this school.

So, in summary, if you care for the safety and wellbeing of students at this school, be prepared to go through a lot of stress and to not be supported by school administration. Also, be prepared to fight for your rightfully earned salary.

This is all from my experience, as I cannot speak for others I do know many teachers who got so frustrated that they did not resign their contracts or left before their contracts expired. This is a Swedish 'freeschool' which means that it is private, though financed by the state, and the principal is also the owner.

Please feel freel to contact me if you have any other questions about my experience at the school.

[Kootvela]

This does sound like school from Hell....