Introduction in English
Metsäkylän Yhtenäiskoulu is a comprehensive school located in the town of Ylöjärvi in Finland. At the beginning of the school year 2021-2022, our school has approximately 800 pupils in grades 1-9.
Metsäkylän Yhtenäiskoulu has expanded considerably between the years 2015 and 2019. The school started as a mere primary school. Originally, it had three parallel classes in grades 1-6. Today we teach both primary school and upper comprehensive school pupils, and there are four or five parallel classes in each grade. Roughly 570 of our pupils attend primary school and 225 pupils upper comprehensive. As the number of pupils has increased in our school, new classrooms and facilities have been added. In 2016, a C-part with 33 new teaching facilities and classrooms was built. Two years later, in 2018, a D-part was introduced. The D-part included a large new gymnasium, facilities for crafts teaching and a youth centre. Finally, an A-part with learning spaces for seven classes was added in 2019, and the older school gymnasium was renovated.
At the moment, our staff consists of 50 teachers, 7 special education teachers, 14 teachers assistants, two principals and a school secretary. In addition, we have two school nurses, a school psychologist and a school welfare officer, the kitchen and school maintenance staff.
Our set of values are 1) caring, 2) trust and 3) curiosity and interest in learning. We care about each other and the wellbeing of each individual. The circle of trust develops when working together in the classrooms and amongst adults. Feeding everyone's inner motive maintains curiosity and the urge to learn.
Our students study Finnish, English and Swedish as compulsory languages, plus German and Spanish as elective languages. The students participate in reading and math diploma programmes according to their age level. The students' ICT skills are maintained regularly through classroom work. We have a sufficient amount of laptops, Chromebooks and iPads for student use.
Our school follows various routines to enhance student wellbeing. The programs against bullying we use are KiVa school and Verso (student mediators), the programs against bad behavior are KaKe (educational phone call) and Five Steps of Behavioral Education, and a program to enhance students' emotional skills is Yhteispeli.
We follow the national curriculum of 2014 (which became active in 2016) and the local curriculum that supports the national.