When I started as the principal at Vittra Halmstad in May 2011, it was the way I was greeted by students at the school, thar clearly showed me the warm and positive feeling that you will encounter during a visit with us.
I find it very exiting to have the opportunity to take over as principal after Rolf Remkéus as he retires. Rolf, along with educators at Vittra Halmstad, has since its inception in 2002, formed an enviroment in which students thrive. 84% of our students and parents say, in the Vittra quality survey of 2011, that they enjoy our school. The same survey also says that 88% of our students feel that they are safe at our school.
Students at Vittra also have good formal results, all of our students in 2010 were eligible for the national programs, and our goal continues för us to be a school at the forefront of the educational development.
I feel this is possible because we have finally moved to our new premises that are spacios, bright and built to be a Vittra school! We finally have the opportunity to grow and accommodate more students and families in our great educational enviroment! An enviroment thar - with keeping a clear attitude toward each other, open spaces and interesting materials - gives students opportunities to work under the best forms by the invitation to dialogue, interaction and community.
In the fall of 2011 we opened our long awaited pre-school! A pre-school that looks towards the future! We will create different learning enviroments tailored to the children that attend our school, these are environments that stimulate the natural curiosity of each child, and we will also make use of the fantastic outdoor environment that exists in our immediate vicinty. Several of our preschool teachers are passionate about outdoor based education and live by the expression "Everything that can be done inside, also can be done outside!"
Vittra´sbasic idea of the importance of clarity, diversity and personal responsibility and Vittra´s five promises, in our case six promises since we are a Vittra International School, will be equally clear in the early childhood education program as well as in grade school.
These ideas and the schools framework was one of the reasons why I chose to accept the position as principal at Vittra. Vittra´s vision, ideas and promises put words onto how I see a beneficial preschool/school that can give our children and young people a good base to stand on for the future, a future that we do not know muck about right now.
If we do a little thought experiment, our one-yaer-olds who entered preschool in the fall of 2011 will graduate in 2029 and retiring in 2077 (if retirement age is at 67 years). If we think the same thought historically, the people who are going to retire now, at a age 65, were one year olds in 1947, who then believed that you could search for information by cellphone everywhere. Back then all information was found in books. Our future adults need, to an even greater extent than today, the ability to process information fast and in new ways, to be creative and to have tha ability to cooperate with their peers.
Much of the schoolresearch that highlights the key-success factors in the school of the future are alredy cornerstones at Vittra. In addition to working with the national objectives in the curriculum, we also work with the basis of the EU´s eight key competences.
I hope that our students, educators, and I will have the opportunity to welcome you to Vittra!
Carina Uvenfeldt
Princial/preschool director Vittra Halmstad