Vester Skerninge Friskole is a small free school in a village near the town of Svendborg (28.000 inhabitants) in the southern part of Fyn, Denmark.
The school is according to the Danish laws of private and free schools partly liberated from the rules for public schools, e.g. when it comes to planning and implementing ideas and values in the curriculum.
The values of the school is inspired by the thinking of Grundtvig – School for Life. The school is run by the 150 families who have chosen to be a part of the school community, and they have chosen the board, which is the legal leadership of the school. The school is partly publicly funded, which gives some limits in the choices, but in practice the board is able to shape the context and the content of the school as they think is most meaningful for their children growing up to become active citizens. The 230 pupils from kindergarten to 9th class are 5 – 16 years old.
The families involved represent the average spread of income, employment and structure. The engagement of the parents is well over-average. The impact of school activities on the surroundings is of significant interest and wider than local. Vester Skerninge Friskole has special focus on media, international cooperation and the awareness of global responsibility towards nature and cultures. Intercultural competences are important, and the key stakeholders for understanding and changes.
One of the main targets for Vester Skerninge Friskole is to prepare the students through courage and knowledge to be able to participate as active citizens in the challenges of the future. The UN 2030 sustainable development goals are target points for not only our students but for the whole world in the coming generation.
Be joining this Erasmus+project the school can not only give the participating students courage and knowledge to act but can also on a teachers’ level develop new teaching skills and knowledge of how to work with the UN goal with students. On a school level we expect to sharpen our profil on this target and also develop structures that can support future education on this theme. Furthermore we also expect to increase the numbers of relevant external partners connected to the school, which we can and will use in future projects.
Key person: Dir. Thomas Visby (replacement: Jesper Villadsen)
We have coordinated an Erasmus+ project from 2016-2019 (Something4Nothing, focusing on cooperation between school and the surrounding civil society). We joined 2 former Comenius projects (intercultural competences and the transition of the energy systems into sustainable solutions). Furthermore we have a lot of experiences within international cooperation and exchange programmes with other schools in Nordic and Baltic countries, the EU and Morocco.