A fifteen-year-old nursery school in international cooperation
The Stekkjarás nursery school celebrated its fifteenth anniversary on 8th September. „Over these fifteen years, we have been in constant development and have never had to worry about stagnation,“ says Alda Agnes Sveinsdóttir, the nursery school headteacher. She says that this past autumn at Stekkjarás has been as lively as ever, and the school community has taken part in and launched various projects.
Stekkjarás Nursery School celebrated its fifteenth anniversary on 8th September. „For these fifteen years, we have been in constant development and have never had to worry about stagnation.“ says Alda Agnes Sveinsdóttir, the nursery headteacher. She says that this past autumn at Stekkjarás has been as lively as ever, and that the school community has taken part in and launched various projects. The local newspaper Fjarðarfréttir This section discusses the professional and creative work of the nursery.
Agnieszka Alda mentions an ongoing staff research project at the school. The research aims to strengthen the learning community of Stekkjarás and also to capture the learning that takes place during outdoor learning in the garden. „Our dream is that through the research, we can contribute additional knowledge to the academic community regarding children's learning in outdoor environments,“ says Alda Agnes. Among the staff at Stekkjarás are individuals keen to collaborate with colleagues in other countries. Over the years, these staff members have worked hard to forge connections abroad. This has benefited the entire school community through the reception of international visitors at Stekkjarási. Strong relationships and ongoing communication have been established as a result of these visits.
„For example, for many years we have been welcoming groups who come to the country through the grassroots organisation Play Iceland. This autumn, we welcomed two groups from them, one on each day. We have also sought to be participants in Erasmus+ projects and in the autumn of 2018 we were accepted onto one such two-year project. That project is about opportunities for outdoor play and how the outdoor area is organised. The participants are four nurseries from England, Scotland, Lithuania and Iceland. Each participating nursery invites the others to visit them once during the two-year project period. This autumn, it was our turn at Stekkjarrás to host a visit, which gave all staff the opportunity to take direct part in the project. A programme was organised from Monday to Thursday, running from morning until evening, which consisted of both challenging tasks and entertainment. Our guests were extremely positive and were ready to share with us as well as to receive what we had to offer, and those days passed incredibly quickly.“
On the planning day in October, there were well-attended educational workshops in Stekkjarás, which were organised by a professional group on creative nursery work and were held in collaboration with the nursery. A learning lab is a method that is gaining ground here in Iceland and is based on informal peer learning, according to Alda Agnes, who says that in such labs, professional discussion is encouraged and knowledge and experience are shared among participants. Alda Agnes says that the above is only a small part of what is planned at the nursery school, but she wants to emphasise that this kind of work is also important for the development of the school's activities, for increased job satisfaction, and that it pays dividends in many ways in the work with the children.