A Danish visit to The Birkenhead Park School

Four teachers and 22 students from Kontiki School in Hillerod were keen to include a two day visit to BPS as part of their trip to the North West. Hillerod is a city of 30,000 people situated around 20 miles from the Danish capital Copenhagen. Education in Denmark is very highly regarded, with single school education up until the age of 16.

Subject Lead for Geography Mrs Kaye said: “This is our second visit from Kontiki School and once again it has been a great success. The education system is Denmark is completely different to the UK so relationships like this are a great way for us to build up our integration of different cultures, with staff and students from both schools learning a lot from the experience.”

The Danish students were given a buddy from The Birkenhead Park School who they went to lessons with. On their first day they took part in cookery where they cooked Frikadeller (Danish meatballs). Day two saw them try out some rock climbing, table tennis and circuit training sessions, as well as a question and answer session with BPS students as part of a project they are working on.

Henriette is the Head of English at the Kontiki School and believes the visit is a key part of their visit, she said: “This is the most important part of our trip. Going to an English School and seeing the system, lessons, how the kids interact with each other, their uniforms, everything that is different from our school system and there is a lot of differences. It has been so interesting for us all and everyone has made us feel so welcome which is very heart-warming.”

The group will spend the rest of their visit to England visiting tourist attractions in Liverpool such as The Beatles Museum and Liverpool Football Club.

Frida, aged 15, said she had really enjoyed seeing such a different educational culture: “It is very different from our school so it has been very exciting to see how you do things here. Talking to the students and seeing the school has been very interesting, everything is very organised whereas our school is so small in comparison and we work very differently in the classroom.”

The Birkenhead Park School was just recently awarded a British Council International School Award in recognition of its continued and growing international links.