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PRESENTED BY FUTURASKOLAN

The international school in Stockholm perfecting the art of giving

“They encourage you to take leadership over a project,” says Elia Gelabert, a native of Barcelona now living in Stockholm. “When you have an idea for a fundraising project, they don't take it and finish it themselves – they let you see it through until the end. You have to lead and drive the project by yourself."

The international school in Stockholm perfecting the art of giving
Elia and Jonathan at Futuraskolan in Stockholm. Photo: Futuraskolan. Photo credit: Futuraskolan

These words are spoken like a seasoned fundraising professional, someone who’s been in the charity sector long enough to recognise and appreciate the nurturing qualities of the organisation that employs her. But Elia is not a veteran fundraiser. She’s just 14 and she’s talking about her teachers’ approach at Futuraskolan, a network of 14 pre-schools and schools in Greater Stockholm for children aged up to 15.

The way in which she is allowed to take responsibility also helps her focus on which ideas are really worth pursuing, she adds, knowing that “if you’re not interested in it, you’re never going to finish it.”

Around 3,000 children attend Futuraskolan, which has three core values: progressiveness, energy and respect. The school also promises that every child will be given positive challenges, with a focus on opportunities to develop both ”inside and outside the classroom.” 

Looking for bilingual English and Swedish schooling? Find out more about Futuraskolan and its emphasis on personal development

Picasso’s children

To emphasise this approach, a recent letter to students from the CEO of Futuraskolan, Tom Callahan, cited a legendary artist as inspiration: “Pablo Picasso once said, ‘The meaning of life is to find your gift, and the purpose of life is to give it away.’ So we ask of you, what will you hone and develop within yourself today, so that you can better lend your gift to the world tomorrow?”

Jonathan Matta, also 14, is another student in the process of finding his ’gift’ and who, like Elia, seems mature beyond his years. But it wasn’t always so. 

“I was always late handing in my homework,” says Jonathan, whose parents moved to Sweden from Egypt. “Then my technology teacher suggested I code a website to help organise the class’s homework. I had already learned coding languages such as Python, Java and C++ in my own time. But I got a bit stuck.” 

However, his teachers provided support to ensure the project didn’t fall by the wayside. “They were so good at encouraging me”, Jonathan says. “I sometimes give up too easily. The Futuraskolan teachers really encouraged me to finish the project. They gave me belief and it helped me complete what turned out to be a great achievement. Lots of students use the website now!”

Jonathan Matta at Futuraskolan. Photo: Futuraskolan

An international outlook

Elia is a leader of Futuraskolan’s Global Citizenship Program, which encourages more of the school’s staff and students to become involved in community service, both locally and internationally, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the world. She embodies Picasso’s idea of finding purpose by giving to others and has been the catalyst for many of Futuraskolan’s recent fundraising drives. 

Find out how Futuraskolan aims to be ‘the best stepping stone for future world citizens’

“One of the things that really helped develop my perspective is studying at an international school,” Elia says. “You get different outlooks from students from many countries. This international outlook influenced me to become involved in the Global Citizenship Program. I realised there are kids in the world still having a hard time, and that made me want to do something about it.”

And Elia did do something about it. She organised an array of fundraising activities, such as bake sales and Christmas markets, raising money to fund transport to school and meals for children in the Philippines. Elia’s use of her ’gift’ made a real world difference to many children thousands of miles away.

And so did Jonathan’s. “I saw what the problem was – we had a hard time organising all our homework and assignments. So, I tried to fix that problem with the skill I had and it worked. It helped the class organise their work and become better at studying.”

Elia Gelabert, a student and fundraiser at Futuraskolan in Stockholm. Photo: Futuraskolan

The teachers that nurture talent

Both children emphasise the huge role of the teaching staff at Futuraskolan in their achievements and the development of their respective talents.

“The teachers encourage us to ask questions and let our curiosity guide us,” Elia says. “I think that’s very important because when you let curiosity guide you, you’ll really know what you want to learn. We are encouraged to dig deeper into what interests us.”

Jonathan adds that his teachers have “brought out my talents” through their constant support. “They made me realise that I have to keep going, that I cannot just give up when my work gets hard,” he says. “They made me realise that I have a gift that I can use to help people in Egypt – I want to help Egypt with my talents in the future.”

His parents are thrilled with how Futuraskolan has helped him to develop. “In Egypt, we didn’t have a computer or even a phone, so learning digital skills was not possible,” Jonathan says. “Here at Futuraskolan, we have the technology but also the amazing teachers. My parents are so happy with the way the teaching staff here have encouraged me, supported me, but also helped me solve problems.”

Elia says her parents have been impressed with how the Futuraskolan teachers have encouraged their daughter to think globally, rather than just locally, and how they’ve inspired Elia to lead projects herself, rather than expect the teaching staff to do so.

“In my previous school, none of this would have been possible,” she says. “Now it’s all possible.”

The future of schooling: find out more about the Futuraskolan network and its innovative, international and bilingual approach to educating your child

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‘Will they pass as British?’: The challenges of raising bilingual kids in Sweden

Twelve years into bringing up his bilingual children in Sweden, Richard Orange wonders if they will ever feel or come across as wholly British.

'Will they pass as British?': The challenges of raising bilingual kids in Sweden

We’re twelve years into raising our bilingual Swedish-British children and the outcome remains uncertain.

My ten-year-old son speaks with an almost comically English accent, like a diminutive Hugh Grant, while my twelve-year-old girl has absorbed an American twang, adopting the YouTube English used by her the rest of her girl gang.

Both still occasionally trip up on phrasal verbs, which often use different prepositions in Swedish from: they might “look on the TV”, for instance. When they were younger, they would create hybrid words, mixing the English “milk” and the Swedish “mjölk” into “myilk”.   

But of the children I know living in Sweden with one British and one Swedish parent, my own probably closest to passing for British.

This is entirely by accident.

When our eldest was born, I was 37 and had only been in Sweden six months, so could barely speak a word of the language, and like many people who start learning a language in middle age, I’m still far from fluent. My Swedish wife, on the other hand, attended American and international schools between the ages of six and seventeen, so for her speaking English comes as naturally as Swedish.

As a result, English has been our main language: in the home, when we’re out and about and very often, when we’re socialising, as we’ve made friends with other families with one English-speaking parent. 

My wife usually speaks Swedish with the children when she’s alone with them, but not always, and if I’m in the room, she’ll often switch subconsciously to English. When the children speak alone with one another, I’m not sure if they have a preference, but if anything English is slightly dominant. 

The only person who suffers from the amount of English spoken at home is me. I’ve tried to switch our evening meals to Swedish to help improve my fluency, but it’s never stuck. 

School and society

My wife’s parents had to work hard to stop her and her brother speaking English at home when they were growing up in Africa, so she sometimes feels guilty that English is so dominant for us. 

She needn’t worry, though, as no Swede talking to our children would ever suspect them of being anything other than Swedish. She insisted on their going to the local municipal school, rather than to an international school, so school and after-school – where they spend roughly half their waking lives – has been almost entirely in Swedish.

I say “almost entirely” as my daughter, in particular, speaks English with her friends, who have parents from Ghana and Cameroon. Sweden’s system of mother-tongue tuition also means that all the English-speaking children in the school are brought together once a week for a lesson. I’m not sure how much the teaching helps their English reading and writing, but it certainly helps bring them together. 

More recently, I’ve been surprised to discover that even my children’s schoolfriends with two Swedish parents are starting to speak English when they hang out. Indeed, the level of English spoken by my daughter’s classmates is rapidly catching up with her own.

For Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes, English is so dominant, almost everyone absorbs it in the end. 

Passing for British

That’s why for me, it’s not really enough for my children to be bilingual in Swedish and English, as that more or less goes for practically everyone their age growing up in Sweden. I want people from the UK who meet them to think of them as British. 

It came as a shock when I first realised this might not happen.

My daughter was still a toddler, and I was interviewing an Australian in Sweden about taking parental leave for an Australian newspaper. When I spoke to his children, then seven and nine, their English was heavily accented and quite limited. I then discovered that a couple of our adult Swedish friends, both of whom spoke English with a definite Swedish accent, had grown up with a British father.  

I was surprised how upset it made me that my daughter started speaking with an American accent, just as I’ve been surprised at how important it is to me that they like Marmite, the bitter salty yeast spread beloved of Brits. I tried to laugh the accent off when we returned to the UK to meet my family and my daughter, understandably, took this badly. A couple of years later, she still resents me for it.

The main thing I’ve done to try and make them pass for British is to return to the UK and stay with my brother and his three similarly aged daughters over Easter and Christmas as often as I can. They are quite close to their cousins, and for me it’s an important link to home.  

From the start, I’ve tried to expand their vocabulary by reading them English children’s books every night, and a few years ago, we started ordering The Beano, a venerable British children’s comic which has been going since 1938. It’s been a surprise hit. For the last two years, they have competed weekly over who gets the first chance to read it. Both read it from cover to cover. 

What to do next? 

For my children to pass as British or even to feel British, will, I suspect, require an extended stay in the UK in their teens or early 20s: a term at a sixth-form college, a semester or more at university, or, like so many of their Swedish colleagues, a few months working in a shop or pub somewhere in the UK. 

It might not work. I’ve heard of half-British children who have gone to the UK to study or work and felt very far from home.

If that happens, if they come back feeling less British than they did before they went, will it matter?

Right now, I feel it will. I will feel like I’ve failed to pass on something important, that they’ve lost a part of their identity I wanted them to have. But with any luck if it does, by that time, I will myself have become too Swedish to care. 

What’s your experience raising a bilingual child in Sweden? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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