Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
PRESENTED BY STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

The Stockholm school where math is an international adventure

How do you inspire gifted mathematics students to become even more excited about the subject? Turning it into an international event and throwing in the word ‘quest’ is a good place to start.

Published: 18 May 2018 12:07 CEST
The Stockholm school where math is an international adventure
Four young Math Quest entrants get stuck into a task.

Learning shouldn’t be a chore, but it’s all too easy for the fun to be sucked out of difficult subjects like mathematics. It’s the indisputable truth that led to Math Quest, an annual math challenge for children aged up to 12 years old.

Founded in 1996, the three-day event is supported by the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (ECIS) and has, for 22 years running, been held at various participating international schools across Europe.

This year, it was the turn of Stockholm International School (SIS) to plan and host the event, a responsibility relished by organiser Tess Guyo (but no mean feat, with around 140 visiting students and coaches in addition to SIS’s 60-strong Math Quest team).

Around 200 students and teachers visited Stockholm International School for this year’s annual Math Quest competition.

It was Tess who first suggested SIS begin participating in Math Quest, and this year marked the eighth year the school has entered a team. It’s just one of many collaborative learning activities that SIS plans throughout the school year.

“There’s the stigma that math is difficult, so opening this activity to young minds inspires them to better understand that it’s not really that hard. It can be tough but we can do it in a fun way as well,” says Guyo, who is head of SIS’s student support department.

Find out more about Stockholm International School

Over the course of the three-day event that was held in early May, students took part in a range of mathematical challenges, including a math ‘trail’ at Tekniska Museet and a construction task which saw them build a Vasa Ship out of recycled materials. They also went on a mini-tour of the Stockholm archipelago and expended some excess physical energy at trampoline park Bounce.

“While they’re here we want them to do more than math. It’s about getting them to immerse themselves in the culture and city itself,” says Guyo.

It’s the school’s responsibility to organise the event and coach the children, but Math Quest wouldn’t be possible without the host families who provide bed and board for the young competitors.

Nancy Johnson, who has two sons currently attending SIS, couldn’t wait to welcome a pair of Math Quest entrants visiting from Lycee International School into her home.

“I’ve been in touch with their parents by phone and I’m really excited,” Nancy told The Local.

She’d already thoughtfully confirmed any dietary requirements so she could plan meals for her young visitors and organised outings for the free time they had in-between activities.

“They’re actually really busy, I’m kind of bummed out! Tonight we’ll have turkey lasagna and hang out then maybe go for a walk. We do get the opportunity to see them in action on Sunday so I’m looking forward to being there and wishing them well.”

Itay Shoham (second from right) poses with several international Math Quest entrants. 

The most important part of the event, of course, is that the children themselves enjoy taking part. And they do; just ask 11-year-old SIS student Itay Shoham who travelled to Geneva with the school’s team last year. He recalled the competition with enthusiasm and felt he gained much from the entire experience.

“It was really fun,” says the 11-year-old. “I learned from it too. It was a series of tests but also we got to have fun with math.”

That’s not to say preparation wasn’t intensive, with participating students giving up much of their own time to get their math skills in shipshape before taking part.

“We had a couple of teachers who prepared us for about three months before we went to Geneva. We did advanced math like quizzes and practice tests,” remembers Itay.

Find out more about Stockholm International School

His favourite part was the trail which is a practical outdoor application of mathematics and an insight into local history and culture.

“We got to see a bit of Geneva on the math trail which is like this course where you see the city and do math activities. It was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.”

Math Quest coach Maryam Samii who was visiting Stockholm from Berlin Brandenburg International School has been involved with the event for seven years now. She believes that one of the truly special things about Math Quest is that it brings out the best in already gifted students.

“This level of commitment, motivation and engagement is not something I can inject in them. While they are there, it’s like synergy when you put a group of highly talented kids who share the same interest in the same room.”

She adds that of almost equal importance is that the children get the chance to travel at a young age, gaining independence as well as a more intercultural outlook.

“Oh, it’s amazing. Mingling, exchanging ideas, and making new friendships — the kids discover something new in themselves in terms of personal and social interpersonal skills. It’s really valuable.”

SIS’s Tess Guyo wholeheartedly agrees. In fact, it’s one of the reasons she has been so dedicated to the event over the past eight years.

“It’s an eye opener for younger children. They see an international flow of hospitality and meet people from different cultures and backgrounds. They come to understand ‘we can live with other people, that is possible’”.

This article was produced by The Local Creative Studio and sponsored by Stockholm International School.

For members

LIVING IN SWEDEN

What you need to know about owning a second home in Sweden

In most countries owning a second home is a luxury reserved for the wealthy, but in Sweden it's very common to have a summer home or 'fritidshus'. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 8 February 2024 15:25 CET
What you need to know about owning a second home in Sweden

What is a fritidshus? 

In Sweden, second homes are generally either classified as a fritidshus, literally a “free time house”, or a permanenthus or permanentboende.

A fritidshus is defined as “a house which is not set up for all-year-around living”. Rather confusingly, this does not mean that you can’t live all-year-round in a fritidshus, or, indeed, that you can’t use a permanenthus as your summer house. 

The difference comes down to how the two types of property are treated in Sweden’s building code, with fritidshus allowed, among other things, to have lower ceilings, smaller bathrooms, more basic kitchens, worse accessibility for disabled people, a lower standard of insulation. 

If you decide to live permanently in a fritidshus, you do not need to get approval to do so, but the building committee at your local council can, if they learn of what you are doing, demand that the building be changed to meet the requirements of a permanenthus (although this rarely happens).

There is also a subgroup of fritidshus, kolonilott, which are houses with a small amount of land which should be used for growing food (although lots of people just use them as attractive gardens). This is different from an odlingslott, which is just an allotment, essentially a kolonilott without the house.

These are usually in designated kolonilott areas close to or in cities, and are not intended for year-round living. In most kolonilott areas, water supply and drainage is cut off outside of the growing season, and you’re not allowed to register them as your permanent address, for example.

Relaxing outside a summer house. Photo: Doris Beling/Imagebank Sweden

How much does a second home cost? 

The average price of a fritidshus fell by about 6 percent in 2023, following a 1 percent fall in 2022, and now lies at about 2.2 million kronor.

But a search on the Hemnet website for fritidshus under 1 million kronor shows that many sell for a lot less, particularly outside the most popular areas. 

As a rule of thumb, anything within an hour’s drive of Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö is likely to be more expensive, as is anywhere on the coast (particularly on Gotland), next to a lake, or near one of Sweden’s more popular skiing areas. 

A report from Länsförsäkringar Fastighetsförmedling, out in mid-2023, found that summer houses were cheapest in Kronoberg country (the southern bit of Småland), followed by Örebro, Värmland, Norrbotten and Västernorrland, and most expensive in Gotland, Stockholm County and Halland. 

What’s the point of having one? 

Despite its vast expanses of unspoiled nature, Sweden is very urbanised, with nearly 90 percent of people living in built-up areas and 63 percent in the biggest few cities. It’s much more common to live in an apartment in a city than in the sort of suburban sprawl of houses with their own gardens so common in countries like the UK and US.

This means that most urban Swedes leave any gardening to their summer houses or allotments.

Given the cold, dark winters, that probably makes sense. 

Fritidshus and other second homes are also at the centre of the long Swedish summer break, when people often take three, or even four, weeks off back-to-back. If you don’t have your own fritidshus, you can spend much of the summer visiting people who do. 

What’s the downside? 

Aside from the cost, it’s a lot of work. Owning a fritidshus means weekends spent at out-of-town building supply shops, and brings a whole new list of chores like cleaning the gutters, mowing, trimming hedges, raking leaves and chopping wood.

If you like foreign travel, and have a lot of other passions and hobbies, you may find owning a summer house squeezes them out. 

A summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. Photo: Sara de Basly/Imagebank Sweden

How common is it to have a fritidshus? 

There are about 607,000 fritidshus in Sweden, and according to Statistics Sweden, about one in three children (35 percent) have access to one.

It most common to have access to a fritidshus in the north of Sweden, with more than half of children having access to one in 51 municipalities north of Dalarna, and it is least common in Skåne, where in some municipalities only 10 percent of children have access to a fritidshus. 

Is it best to have a second home in a fritidsområde or on its own? 

Many municipalities in Sweden have set aside areas, often near a lake or by the sea, specifically for the building of fritidshus, selling off plots, or tomter, on which people can either build a holiday cottage themselves or get a builder to do it.

According to Statitsics Sweden, about a quarter of fritidshus are in such an area, with Stockholm County boasting the most fritidsområde, or holiday home areas, followed by Västra Götaland (near Gothenburg) and Skåne (near Malmö and Helsingborg). 

If you are building your own summer house, the advantage of doing so in a fritidsområde is that electricity, water and sewage has normally already been run along the edge of the plot, making these services cheap and easy to connect. 

If you want to get a summer house near the coast or a lake, it is also cheaper if you buy one in a fritidsområde. 

On the downside, they can feel a little like living in a housing estate, you have to be careful not to make too much noise, and can end up getting complaints from the local neighbourhood committee if you don’t maintain your property in the way they expect. 

As many fritidsområde were set up the 1960s and 1970s, with a lot of the houses then built by enthusiastic amateurs, they can also be in desrepair and have structural problems. 

The plots that have yet to be built on, meanwhile, are often the worst, for instance with ground that is damp or prone to flooding. 

Renting out your second home

One of the advantages of your second home being classed as a fritidshus is that – so long as you’re only renting it out short-term — you are not covered by Sweden’s strict rental law or hyreslagen.

This means whatever rent you agree with the tenant is valid, there is no requirement to ask for a “reasonable” rent, and tenants cannot contest the rent with the regional rent tribunal.  

Airbnb makes renting out your fritidshus extremely easy and on the other side makes it a lot cheaper and easier to rent a summer house for three weeks in the summer than to own one all year around.  

If you earn more than 40,000 kronor in a year from renting out your fritidshus, though, you are required to declare it to the Swedish Tax Agency. 

You can then subtract a 40,000 kronor ‘standard deduction’ from your rental revenue and a further 20 percent deduction for rental income, before it gets taxed. See the guide from the Swedish Tax Agency here. 

This means if you receive 60,000 kronor in rent, you subtract first 40,000 kronor, then 20 percent of the 60,000 kronor, which comes to 12,000 kronor.

This leaves you with 8,000 kronor to be taxed as capital income at 30 percent, leaving just 2,400 kronor in tax due. 

SHOW COMMENTS