Today we gathered in the early morning hour, online, for our end of term ceremony with dance and musical performances, a farewell speech from the principal and garden candles lit on the Midgården stairs.

Our tradition is to light one candle for each student on this last day of the autumn term. This year, we light our candles in memory of our dear student and schoolmate Lukas, who left us far too early, in great sorrow and loss.

We wish you all a Peaceful Holiday and a Happy New Year.
Take care of each other.

The Lucia celebration reminds us all of the light and the advent of Christmas, and is a wonderful tradition at SSHL that we usually celebrate with students, staff, parents and invited guests.

This has been a challenging year, during which we have had to adapt our traditions to follow current restrictions including our Lucia celebration. Instead, we are delighted to share our student’s portrayal of the legend of Saint Lucia using drama, music and dance.

The film is a collaboration between the arts, music, drama, and dance departments – with support from students who operated sound and light equipment.

Would you like to support our students to develop their visual communication skills further? Please read more about our new SSHL Digital ART Studio below.

The Legend of Lucia from SSHL Sigtuna on Vimeo.

Would you like to support SSHL Digital ART Studio?

The proceeds from last year’s Lucia celebration were donated to charitable student organisations here at SSHL. This year, our goal is to raise SEK 100,000 to create an SSHL Digital ART Studio. We plan to give all of our students the skills needed for modern visual communication production which will benefit them in their further education and future careers. Your support will give them access to professional digital studio tools.

Contributions welcome here!

All contributions are greatly appreciated. Thank you for supporting this exciting and creative project.

Read more about the SSHL Digital ART Studio project.

We look forward to sharing our students’ work in the future, both here on the website and on our social channels. For any questions or further information, please contact Marika Wäreborn, fundraising@sshl.se.

We live in a visual, digital world. Our students are constantly online seeing professional digital images in playing games, social media, and film. Beyond traditional methods, visual arts education today should also give students the skills to express themselves digitally.

– Improving student comprehension of visual communication and how they can create and communicate digitally is essential to a modern visual arts education, says Ulrika Lindblom who is an art teacher at SSHL.

Ulrika and her colleagues have, therefore, started SSHL Digital Art Studio, a project aimed at stimulating art creation, creativity, and giving students new opportunities to solve problems, in new ways:

Donate to make a difference!

– We want to give our students the skills and confidence needed. Students that find drawing and painting with traditional tools like pencils, pens or brushes often thrive when given access to digital tools.

Preparing students for further studies

The project’s goal is to build a professional digital studio for the school’s visual arts department.  New digital tools are needed to achieve this – for example Ipads with professional illustration applications that provide completely new opportunities for creative expression through sketching and working in layers with different artistic elements.

–  Students of today will work in a digital world where they need to master digital tools, in all areas such as visual arts, design, and photography, Ulrika continues. We want to equip our graduates with the skills they need for higher education in fields like engineering, design or architecture.

DONATE TODAY

Critical thinking in the digital world

Another aim of the project is to increase students’ comprehension of image manipulation and to open a pathway for more thorough critical thinking about what they see every day in the digital world. An upgraded digital studio will also contribute to giving our students professional presentation skills; something that they will benefit from in all subjects.

–  A digital studio will give us the opportunity to offer more creative extracurricular activities at the school. We will be able to work with moving images, animation, and 3D modeling. We are really looking forward to our digital studio becoming a reality, Ulrika concludes.

See the students’ work for this year’s Lucia celebration here.

DONATE

We have been nominated for the International School Awards – again! This time with two initiatives from our fantastic students.

The school club Design and Technology Group, has been nominated in the category “Environmental Initiative” and The Kenya Project, has been nominated in the category “Community Initiative”. 

International School Awards is a prestigious competition. This year, schools from 62 different countries are participating with 264 different initiatives. Last year, it was young researchers in the group Think Tank who were nominated in the category  “Future Thinking”, and who represented SSHL at the awards ceremony in London in January.  

Only 44 competition entities are chosen to go into the final, with three finalists in each category. The competition’s organizational team have announced that the breadth of the entries are exceptional this year, especially taking into account how difficult and challenging the  year 2020 has been for students and educators. 

The winners are to be announced at the online award ceremony in London in January.

Something that characterizes both of these groups are a passionate commitment, great creativity, and the will to make a difference for both the environment and humanity:

The Kenya Project at SSHL is a small charity that has been run by students at SSHL since 2006, with the aim of providing children in the small village of Wagve, Kenya with an education. The student organization has had many successful projects in the small community. But, before all else, they have built a school, the Mama Norah Education Center, which they also currently fund.

Since the initiative started, both students, teachers, and other adults at SSHL have taken part in fundraising for Mama Norah. The Board currently consists of ten students. The project also has over 50 active members who participate in the different activities that are run by the Kenya Project at SSHL.

– This year has been hard, says Nina Plöen, who works as a boarding house supervisor at SSHL and who is the responsible adult for the Kenya Project. Because of the ongoing pandemic, we have had to cancel all of our fundraising events where we collect funds and recruit donors. This has created a lot of worry for us as we depend on gifts from others in order to keep our school in Wagve open.  

The pandemic has also had an enormous effect on teachers and students at Mama Norah’s. Among other things, we have distributed lunchboxes to students who have not been able to eat during the times that the school has been temporarily closed. And, our seamstress has provided all of Wagve with facemasks to prevent the spread of Covid-19. 

– I am incredibly proud and it is a bit surreal that our project is now getting broad international attention through ISA, says Nina.  

Read more and follow The Kenya Project at www.mamanorah.com and facebook.com/mamanorahedu 

Design and Technology Group or DTG, began as an extracurricular activity for a small group of students interested in technology. The organization has grown quickly and the students are currently working with a number of projects in which discarded technology is reused to create new and sustainable technology. 

Georgios Savvas is a house tutor at SSHL and also the mentor for the group. He thinks that the nomination is a recognition and reward for the work that the students have put into DTG over the five years that the group has been at the school: 

– The students should be the first to receive the congratulations because, despite their busy school schedule, they found the time to do something creative, innovative and to construct things far beyond what one would expect for secondary school students.

– Having created a 3D printer made almost entirely of scrap, the creation of a disinfection chamber for Covid-19, the reconstruction of useless computers, and much more, we continue this year with the creation of a standalone drone that will help reforestation, as well and creating a prototype of an energy-efficient and smart home.

Read more about the exciting projects in Design and Technology Group 

We will cross our fingers for both of the entries and look forward to once again seeing our students at the awards ceremony that will be broadcasted live from London in January! 

It started as an informal after-school activity with a small group of technology interested students.

With the support of one adult staff member, it soon developed into a formal long-term sustainable school initiative; the SSHL Design and Technology Group.

In the Design and Technology Group, DTG, students raise their awareness about the possibilities with a sustainable technology approach. The initiative has shown ways that technological waste can be utilized for new technology, and how technology can be designed to solve new problems while also protecting the environment.

The group now has a Board made up of students from many different programs and age groups. The initiative is promoted both locally and abroad.

Georgios Savvas, the students’ mentor and house tutor:
– This is a service driven extra-curricular initiative that creates opportunities for students and staff to apply their classroom learning to solve real world problems, in collaboration with organizations outside of the school.

Mr Savvas also thinks that the DTG initiative empowers the next generation to think about needed technology in new ways and make decisions that also protect the global environment.

The initiative has faced several challenges, where two stand out:

50 broken laptops turned into 30 fully functional laptops

The group collaborated with a local school to receive 50 broken laptops, destined for the waste. The students refurbished and ended up with 30 fully functional laptops.

The intention with the laptops was to donate them to a school in Kenya – but the school did not have power to charge the laptops, nor did they have internet access. Instead the students donated the laptops to the local educational community and set out to find a long term solution for the school in Kenya through learning how to elicit donations of sustainability technology.

Not only did the team succeed in securing solar panels for the Kenyan school, they also secured a sponsor for satellite internet. The technology was recently installed and the group has now created a long term plan to build and send refurbished educational technology to the school.

UV-sanitation system that disinfects groceries

This project was initiated in order to support the local community in the Covid-19 response. The students designed and built a UV-sanitation system that disinfects groceries at the cashier station. A local grocery store agreed to test the unit for long-term use but could only do so if the unit was under patent. The group, therefore, put together and submitted a patent application to ensure that the unit can get on the market as quickly as possible. The students will now be working on pandemic solutions long term.

Matteo Villa DP22, who lives in Backa boarding house, has been a member of DTG since he arrived at the school. He became interested because of previous projects, for instance the 3D printer. Matteo is going into an Engineering track for his future academics. He studies HL Maths and HL Physics and thought that working with the DTG would give him valuable experience.

What are you working on right now?
– We are building a seed drone and getting a Net Zero house to campus. I am very excited to see the drone fly for the first time, Matteo says.

In the drone project, the group is building a semi-autonomous drone. The goal is for the drone to deliver seeds in a remote location in either Kenya or Nigeria to help regrow areas that have been damaged by deforestation. The drone is largely being built with parts from technology that has been discarded.

Elias Sevdas DP22, who lives in Midgården boarding house, studies High Level Maths and Physics and felt that DTG was a nice complement to his studies. He wants to assure everyone that DTG is not only for students from these subjects but that everyone can participate.

What do you like most about DTG?
– I am really motivated by the use of waste in solving technological questions. My aim is to help the world with “absolute waste reduction”, Elias says.

Elias and the group are also working on a prototype of a Net Zero house on campus, which they aim to convert into the Net Zero goal house. Both Matteo and Elias are excited about getting the building onto campus and doing the technological design work needed for this structure.

Anyone can join

The DTG has members from all backgrounds, with the youngest from Year 8 in the Swedish Grundskola. No experience with technology is needed to join DTG, who welcomes students from all programs and at all ages. The group meets twice a week in their workshop in the basement of one of the boarding houses.

The goal is to promote sustainable technology changes to safeguard both the local and global environment.

Part-time distance learning for secondary students

2020-11-11 The situation with the spread of Covid-19 is worsening again and we have had several cases of infections in students and staff at the school.

To halt the development, we have therefore decided to start with part-time distance learning for secondary students;
– in years 2-3 from 16 November
– for year 1 students from November 30.

This applies until 15 January.

Action plan for autumn term 2020

The school year started somewhat different this year, due to the current situation. Only students of year 7 and MYP guardians were invited for the traditional welcome gathering at the school. All other classes had their information meetings online, including our Principal’s welcome speech.

• School Uniform – no student will wear a uniform during the first two weeks of school, as we will hand out the uniforms during that period. The previous schedule for trying on uniforms has been cancelled and replaced with individually booked appointments.
• In case of illness – if a student becomes ill this student must immediately go home to their parents/guardians or Swedish guardians. A separate boarding home will be opened for boarding students who may not have parents/guardians in Sweden and who do not have a Swedish guardian; any sick students will be moved here immediately.
  – Any students who become ill must get tested for Covid-19 as soon as possible. In the event of a positive result, students must stay home, alternately in the separate boarding home until they have been symptom free for two (2) days.
  – In case of a negative test result, for example in case of a common cold, the student must stay at home until they feel better and only then return to school.
• Dining Hall – we will be separating the student lunch times into several different buildings at different times. This is to avoid crowding and queuing.
• Café Humlan – fewer students will be permitted in the cafe at the same time.
• We will space out the tables in the classrooms as much as we can to make it as airy as possible.
• We will be using more rooms in order to spread out as much as possible, and, among others, we will use the outdoor classroom.
• Student Lockers – our boarding students will keep their belongings in the boarding homes to minimize crowding by the lockers.
• Hand disinfectant will be available in all classrooms and other areas.
• Aula Assembly – all Aula assemblies are cancelled through the Autumn term.
• School Photos will be scheduled at a later time.
• The school’s sport exchange with Herlufsholm’s Boarding School in Denmark as well as the Autumn term competitions are, regrettably, cancelled. Our other extra curricular activities will follow the rules and recommendations that are in place for Sweden.
• Extra cleaning – our expanded cleaning schelde continues.
• Face Mask – the wearing of a face mask is voluntary. It is up to the individual to get their own face mask if they want to wear it. Each and every person is also responsible to ensure they wear it correctly according to recommendations and that any school rules are still followed.
• Distance Learning will not currently be offered, but it can be something that we may need to return to in the event that the infection rate increases, or if problems arise with public transportation.

We are all very happy to start our new school year. If everyone respects and follows the rules and regulations put in place, it will increase the chances that we can continue to keep the school open. We must all adjust to the current situation and take responsibility.

2020-06-24 Highschool students back on campus from autumn 
2020-05-22 2020 graduation celebrations
2020-05-18 A very different spring term 
2020-04-29 Graduation ceremonies reduced

Boarding houses stay open with remote teaching

2020-04-20 In response to recommendations from the Swedish authorities, our students in the Swedish gymnasium, IB MYP5 and DP are studying from home as of 17 March. This situation is unchanged.

Additionally, we follow the authorities’ guidelines for middle school, which means that students in the Swedish grundskola and IB MYP 2-4 go to school as usual.

Remote lessons and distance learning

2020-03-17  On Wednesday 18th March all lessons for students are cancelled as teachers will be planning for the delivery of remote lessons and distance learning.

• From Thursday 19th March onwards all high school lessons, Swedish high school, MYP5 and DP, will be held remotely.
• Our Middle school students, both Swedish and IB MYP, can choose to attend lessons or continue their studies remotely.

We are doing our best to provide as effective distance learning as possible as well as considering all the possible measures that need to be taken for those students that are remaining at school.
We encourage all our students to continue to take their learning seriously and to be aware that distance learning is very demanding.

Boarding
Our boarding houses are open and extracurricular activities are continuing as normal, as far as possible according to the current situation. We hope that as many boarding students as possible will choose to stay. We plan to increase contact with our house tutors.

High school students, Swedish gymnasium, MYP5 and IB DP
The authorities recommend that all high school introduce distance learning immediately. We have therefore instructed all high school students to stay away from school and study via distance learning.

This is in accordance with the new guidelines from the authorities. For further information please see the internal communication channels, Schoolsoft and Managebac.

Middle school students, Swedish and MYP2-4
The authorities have judged that middle school will remain open for the time being. We therefore see no reason to close the school for year 7-9/MYP2-4. Students who have not chosen to follow distance learning can continue to attend school as normal.

We ask everyone to continue following all the earlier recommendations in order to avoid infection, most importantly stay at home if you show any symptoms or with others in the home that are infected.

Further changes due to covid-19

2020-03-11  SSHL has followed the BSA (Boarding Schools’ Association) recommended guidelines to deal with the threat of Coronavirus. SSHL is consequently taking stricter precautions than those recommended by the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

We have adopted the following policies until further notice:

• Visits to the school are restricted to an absolute minimum.
• Students and staff that have come in direct contact with someone infected by the Coronavirus are to stay at home, away from SSHL, regardless of symptoms.
• As always, anyone who is sick in any way is to stay at home, away from SSHL.

All assemblies and larger gatherings on campus are cancelled until further notice. All types of off-campus events and trips are cancelled, including the NECIS tournament.

Visitors to the SSHL campus
Visitors to SSHL are required to sign a statement confirming that they are not at risk of carrying a COVID-19 infection. Visitors that cannot meet this requirement are asked to postpone or reschedule their visit. The document is to be signed at the reception in Alhem and can be emailed in advance on request.

All the actions needed to manage the situation around the Coronavirus are, of course, very frustrating, but it is part of the school’s preventative work. We are very grateful for your understanding.

More information is available for students and parents/guardians at the schools’ internal channel Schoolsoft.

Regarding the Coronavirus disease

2020-03-28  At SSHL, we follow current advice from the BSA Boarding Schools’ Association, with regards to the continued spread of the Coronavirus.

According to the Public Health Agency of Sweden, the risk for a continued spread of the Coronavirus in Sweden is very low. However, as an international boarding school, we have decided to be extra precautious and add additional safety measures.

• We have earlier advised our students not to travel to China, or other areas where authorities assess the risk of exposure to the Coronavirus as high.
• Due to the continued spread of the Coronavirus disease, we now also ask all students who have traveled to Iran, South Korea, northern Italy and Tenerife during the holiday to stay at home or with a guardian, and not go back to school the coming weeks.
• As of Monday 2 March, we also accept no visitors who have traveled to any of the affected regions recently.

We kindly ask that any student or family who has travelled to/from, or have had direct contact with anyone from a Coronavirus affected area, to inform us immediately via info@sshl.se.

We follow the development closely, staying prepared for any changes in the situation.

More information and answers to frequently asked questions are available for students and parents/guardians at the schools’ internal channel Schoolsoft.

All students and staff are asked to stay alert to symptoms such as cough, fever and/or difficulties breathing. If these symptoms occur, the student or member of staff should stay at home and if needed search medical advice via telephone.

When should I stay at home and seek medical advice?

As a day student you should, as always, stay at home if you have symptoms such as cough, fever or other symptoms of illness. If you are ill and any of the below apply, you should also contact Vårdguiden tel no 1177 (Sweden) or your local/regional medical institution by telephone:

• During the past 14 days, you have visited China, Iran, South Korea, northern Italy or any other area infected by the Coronavirus.
• During the past 14 days, you have been in direct contact with anyone from a Coronavirus affected area.

One of our recent graduates, Stephanie Nyberg, visited SSHL today to receive The Curt Nicolin Academic Achievement Award. The award recognizes the academic achievements of students on the IB Diploma Programme at SSHL.

The award is usually presented at one of our school assemblies. This year, Stephanie received her diploma outside, on campus. Stephanies’ extraordinary achievement of 43 points was the highest score at SSHL last academic year and this puts her in the top of all IB Diploma students worldwide in the May 2020 examinations.

Stephanie is passionate about astronomy. At SSHL, she was one of the driving forces behind the Student Association Stellar. She is now studying physics at Uppsala University and her plan is to be a scientist. 

What do you think made you so successful in your studies at the IB Diploma Programme? 

– You have to start early, work hard from day one. And ask questions when you don’t understand, talk to your teachers, Stephanie says. They are always there for you! 

The Curt Nicolin award recognises students who reach 40 points or more. Beyond the recognition, all recipients are awarded a prize sum of SEK 10,000 while the student who rises to the top to achieve the highest overall score at SSHL over 40 points receives an additional award sum of SEK 40,000.

Every year on Scholarship prize Day, we also recognise a large number of students with several other scholarships, awards and prizes.

We wish Stephanie the best of luck in her future studies!

Weekly boarding – a new boarding option

Weekly boarding will be available from the fall 2021 term. Weekly boarding gives students time at home every weekend.

The weekly Monday through Friday option can provide welcome support to busy families whose work and life commitments put pressure on the logistics of school and extracurriculars. Boarding at SSHL gives students access to academic support beyond the classroom and access to a wide range of extracurricular activities. If you are interested in weekly boarding, please register your interest as soon as possible.

You can read about our other boarding options here.

Welcome to the academic year of 2020-2021.

School starts for all students on Monday 24 August. The beginning of this term will be somewhat different, considering the current situation. We ask for your understanding and look forward to a new and exciting year together!

During our two first weeks of school, no student will wear the school uniform, due to extended tryout schedule of uniforms for day students. Please see below.

Covid-19: The school’s action plan for Autumn Term 2020 – see below.

Please note the following dates and times:

New schedule for tryout of school uniform – Day students
For everyones safety, we are offering individual time slots for the school uniform tryout for our day students. The time schedule earlier announced is cancelled. Instead, we kindly ask you to book your time slot here:

Day student – girls: https://sshl.doodle.com/poll/q4un8bxi2i25nw5r
Day student – boys: https://sshl.doodle.com/poll/4z37nybaebe4xgrk
New boarding students try out their uniforms according to a separate schedule on the arrival day 22 August. No booking required.

– To follow current restrictions, only one family member may accompany the student at the tryout.

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Saturday 22 August – Check in and information for new boarding students
From 11.30: Check in at the boarding houses, new boarders only.

Afternoon: Information for new boarding students with guardians, in the aula.
School uniform tryout, according to separate schedule.

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Sunday 23 August

From 12.00 – Check in at the boarding houses, returning boarders only.

For health and safety reasons, the following meetings take place without students, and with only one family member per student present:

9.00 – 10.00 – Information meeting for guardians of students in MYP2
Place: the aula. Optional meeting with the student’s mentor.

10.30 – 11.30 – Information meeting for guardians of students årskurs 7
Place: the aula. Sharing of class lists.
Optional meeting with the student’s mentor.

The following meetings will take place online:

13.00 – 14.00 – Information for guardians of students – all other classes
Place: Online meeting with mentors via Google Meet.
Invitation/link to the meeting will be sent by mentors via email.

14.00 – 15.00 – The Parents Association’s annual meeting – for all parents
Place: online meeting.
Invitation/link to the meeting will be sent out by the Parents Association.

Video – Welcoming speech by Principal Carina Nilsson
Will be distributed via email to all guardians via email.

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Monday 24 August – Gathering for all students
Place: Midgårdstrappan. Dresscode: individual, no school uniform. Schedule:
08.15 – MYP5
08.45 – MYP2 and årskurs 7
09.15 – MYP3 and årskurs 8
09.45 – BM23, EK23, NA23, SA23
10.15 – MYP4 and årskurs 9
10.45 – DP21, DP22
11.15 – BM22, EK22, NA22, SA22
11.45 – BM21, EK21, NA21, SA21

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Tuesday-Wednesday, 25-26 August – Introduction days for all students
8.00 – School starts. Introduction according to separate schedule.

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If you have any questions, please call +46 8 592 571 00, or e-mail the office on info@sshl.se.

The school’s action plan before Autumn Term 2020 in regards to Covid-19

• School Uniform – no student will wear a uniform during the first two weeks of school, as we will hand out the uniforms for day students during that period. The previous schedule for trying on uniforms has been cancelled and replaced with individually booked appointments: please see links above.
• In case of illness – if a student becomes ill this student must immediately go home to their parents/guardians or Swedish guardians. A separate boarding home will be opened for boarding students who may not have parents/guardians in Sweden and who do not have a Swedish guardian; any sick students will be moved here immediately.
  – Any students who become ill must get tested for Covid-19 as soon as possible. In the event of a positive result, students must stay home, alternately in the separate boarding home until they have been symptom free for two (2) days.
  – In case of a negative test result, for example in case of a common cold, the student must stay at home until they feel better and only then return to school.
• Dining Hall – we will be separating the student lunch times into several different buildings at different times. This is to avoid crowding and queuing.
• Café Humlan – fewer students will be permitted in the cafe at the same time.
• We will space out the tables in the classrooms as much as we can to make it as airy as possible.
• We will be using more rooms in order to spread out as much as possible, and, among others, we will use the outdoor classroom.
• Student Lockers – our boarding students will keep their belongings in the boarding homes to minimize crowding by the lockers.
• Hand disinfectant will be available in all classrooms and other areas.
• Aula Assembly – all Aula assemblies are cancelled through the Autumn term.
• School Photos will be scheduled at a later time.
• The school’s sport exchange with Herlufsholm’s Boarding School in Denmark as well as the Autumn term competitions are, regrettably, cancelled. Our other extra curricular activities will follow the rules and recommendations that are in place for Sweden.
• Extra cleaning – our expanded cleaning schelde continues.
• Face Mask – the wearing of a face mask is voluntary. It is up to the individual to get their own face mask if they want to wear it. Each and every person is also responsible to ensure they wear it correctly according to recommendations and that any school rules are still followed.
• Distance Learning will not currently be offered, but it can be something that we may need to return to in the event that the infection rate increases, or if problems arise with public transportation.
• Responsibility – we are all very happy to get the school started. If everyone respects and follows the rules and regulations put in place, it will increase the chances that we can continue to keep the school open. We must all adjust to the current situation and take responsibility.