Department of Education The International School of Älmhult
Postaladdress Box 501, 343 23 Älmhult ● Visitingaddress Östra Esplanaden, Älmhult ● Telephone 0476-554 95 Webpage www.almhult.se ● E-mail theinternationalschool@almhult.se
Evaluation of fritids spring term 2013
Christmas break – all went smoothly. We played a lot outdoors. Snow ball fights were forbidden.
Sports break – Included a visit to the water tower with a BBQ, it was very popular.
Easter break – We focused on outdoor activities, for example building a BBQ area which meant work with concrete and stones. Baking was also a big part of this break.
After this break an information letter was sent to all parents to clarify the importance of signing up or canceling during school breaks. We did this because our planning was miscalculated by 75%, when we stayed open during the school holidays we had a very low attendance.
Open house May 15th – The open house was cancelled due to a tragic accident involving one of our students. Fritids stayed open for that day, which the fritids staff found very hard. We worked long days and didn’t get enough support in the afternoons. Hopefully we will not experience a tragedy like this again, but it is important to know that the usual number of staff is not enough in situations like this.
Children and staff needed more support throughout the day.
Wild fritids camp – We had an overnight camp. 30 children slept in a barn in the middle of a big forest.
This was very appreciated by children, parents and the staff. The camp included cooking outdoor, treasure hunt, midsummer celebration, games and BBQ. For the next camp, we need a larger portable toilet or empty the smaller one after 12 hours.
Summer holiday – In the beginning of the summer break we made a music video together with the children. They all got a character each, dressed up and really enjoyed playing someone else. After some rehearsing we recorded the whole video in the auditorium. This was very appreciated by both the children and their parents.
We went to the grand reopening of the Nicklabacken’s Playground and were actually the first children to play there, we stayed to listen to the speeches and got t-shirts and other gifts.
We also visited the town market, all the children brought 20 kr each and bought candy at the market.
The children really enjoyed the market and behaved very well.
We also let the children paint the shed, so now we got a lot more color in our schoolyard and the shed is better taken cared of.
Standing activities – We started a homework club which was twice a week, but at the end of the term we only had it when it was asked for.
Two swimming groups has been has been swimming every week and two groups has been to the PE- hall. Splitting up in smaller groups has worked very well and is something we will continue with.
The book club will start after a term of cancellation due to the librarian’s schedule.
Department of Education The International School of Älmhult
Postaladdress Box 501, 343 23 Älmhult ● Visitingaddress Östra Esplanaden, Älmhult ● Telephone 0476-554 95 Webpage www.almhult.se ● E-mail theinternationalschool@almhult.se
Schedule – We changed the schedule by looking at it backwards and making sure that we had more even hours every day. Alex started working with us 80%, as from January.
Snack – The snack is still served outside and it works really well. Some children throw leftovers in the forest and we need to work on this matter.
Visits – We took groups with 5-7 children to the indoors play area at Ikea. This worked well and the children enjoyed it. We also paid a visit to the Ikea museum. It didn’t work that well, it was hard to supervise all the children because of the large area.
Time spent at summer Fritids in Klöxhult – 5-10 of our students spent 3 weeks at the summer fritids together with students from other schools in Älmhult. An information meeting for the parents was available in the spring, and the parents thought it was very good.
Budget/inventory – We bought a morukka, a cooking pan for outdoor use. Art and craft material, smaller games and sports equipment was also bought.
Where we are in the mornings and afternoons – During spring term we used 3, sometimes 4
classrooms. Mornings usually started in the sofa area were games, paper and pens are kept. The plan for the autumn term is to use the “fritids/pyp 4 grouproom” as much as possible. The “kitchen classroom”
will still be used to access the dishwasher, fridge, sink and other needed facilities. The Xbox, which only was used by the older students, is now available for all classes.
Storage – For the autumn term we have moved contents from a cabinet in the kitchen to a cabinet in the corridor. We also moved a cabinet into the “fritids/pyp 4 grouproom”. In this room we store larger toys instead of in classrooms and the corridor. We are still short on space but hope that these changes will improve this. Outdoor we have added some peg rails, a ball chest and a cupboard in the shed. The building programme gave us a wall shelf where we keep papers and folders. We now keep all mugs and cups in the teachers’ room so we can prepare snack without disturbing in the “kitchen/classroom”.
Some stuff is also kept in the basement. The children’s individual drawers were barely used so they are now emptied and used as storage for fritids.
