Freeway - An Exciting Upper Secondary School

An Exciting Upper Secondary School - Parkskolan

A lot of people around the world are students, but what do we know about schools in other countries? Do they study like us, at programmes with branches or what? We decided to tell you about Upper Secondary School, the school for youths in Sweden between 16 and 20...

Upper Secondary School in Sweden is a little bit different from the schools in the rest of the world. It is divided into programmes and in the 9th grade (at 16) you choose which programme you want to study at. Upper Secondary School ( in Swedish, "gymnasium" ) is a non-compulsory school, which means that it is optional. But, it is practically impossible to get a job only after the nine-year compulsory schoool, so you "have" to finish U.S.S. to have any chance at all. The employers of today want as highly educated people as possible and many students continue to study at the University or at a University College.

Practical or theoretical?

The first decision that you have to make is whether you want to study at a theoretical or at a practical programme. No matter which programme you choose, you always have to study for three years. Practical programmes are those where your education in the classroom is combined with a great deal of work-experience. Students in our school can have their practice at, for example, hairdressers, factories, restaurants or at electric outfitters. These programmes have a lot of practice, around 15%, so you should be quite interested in the subject or feel sure about what you want to do in the future if you choose one of these. The students at these programmes only study the core-subjects, which gives you the general eligibility to university. The programmes are vocationally oriented and we have 10 practical programmes here at Parkskolan, but we also have two theoretical programmes to choose between. They primarily prepare you for university studies and these are "the Natural Science Programme" and "the Social Science Programme".

A day at the Construction Programme
Social Science students during their English lesson

The grades in Sweden

Our marking system have four different grades: fail (IG), pass (G), pass with distinction (VG) and pass with special dinstinction (MVG). Everybody has the chance to get "G", because if you fail on a test you always have the right to a second chance. If you get "IG" on a course, then you can take an exam to pass. The system can get better because we think that there are too wide limits between the grades. But, things change everyday, so who knows?

Core subjects - courses that everybody has to take

At all programmes you take a few subjects who are called core subjects and they give you the basic knowledge in for example Maths, Swedish, English and so on. One special subject is the individual choice, when you can choose courses that your programme doesn't include. You have 190 points (1point = 60 minutes) for 2nd and 3rd grade when you can, for example, learn more about computers and learn how to make "daily food" . Or why not try work-out? There are several courses to choose between and it is quite hard to make up your mind. All the students that we have talked to think that the individuals choice is a very good idea!

Students at the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Programme.

The two of us

We study at the Social Sience Programme here at Parkskolan and we are in the second grade. We all took the same courses the first year and then we had to decide wich branch we wanted to study at. In the Social Sience Programme there are six different branches. These are: the Business branch, International Class, Humanistic, Social Science, Economics and Natural Science branch. We have chosen the Natural Science branch, which means that we study more Natural Sience and maths. It´s a good branch if you haven´t decided yet what you want to work with and it gives you a high eligibility to university.

To be a student here

We don´t have to pay for our education, it´s free and we get free lunch every day, which is really great! It´s our own responsibilty how we take care of our schooling. But, as we said, it´s hard to get a job without an education. We get a student grant if we go to our lessons and don't play truant too much. Today we get 750 Swedish crowns every month. Everybody who goes to school and is younger than twenty years old gets the student grant. We don´t have any school uniforms here in Sweden. We can wear almost whatever we feel like and in our opinion, that is really good. But that depends on what everone is used to.

Our class - Sp 2a

Most students in our class are quite satisfied with our school. It is nice, we have a great cafeteria and a lot of different personalities here, which is very funny. Of course you can't like everything but since we don't have to pay for our books, the schooling or our lunch, we shouldn't complain at all!

Our Cafeteria with a lot of candy and sandwiches.

Skolverket - The National Agency for Education