25 Nov Christmas tree of iron, heart doctors and Togetherness

Dear reader,

The Christmas weekend was a huge success and the school is now totally decorated. The Christmas tree at the top of the Seminary building shines out across Himmerland and in the windows the traditional light decorations shine out kindly in the winter darkness.
The week has been characterised by the fact that a lot of 10th year students have been on a bridge-building course both in Aalborg and Års. The students left early in the morning and returned late in the afternoon. The students who have completed the bridge have done OSO and then the 9th grade has worked intensively on their big project assignment. In between, there has been time for Christmas cheer and to prepare for the upcoming term exams. This weekend the students are either at home or visiting each other and Monday is free of classes as we have Cultural Studies and Performance Day next Saturday for students, parents and siblings.

Video: Mannequin challenge

It's good to have a break for your head when doing project work, bridge building and OSO work. We did the mannequin challenge in the Swede - and it was great fun!

Completion of OSO task

These are the strangest questions the kitchen gets when working on a Compulsory Independent Task and two future cardiologists have to demonstrate their way to the operating table.
OSO combines both theory and practice, and helps set the direction of educational dreams. It's a great time, which for some is a test in planning and executing, as well as presenting their work independently. The students have generally done fantastically well!

Dance Auditions

This week has also seen dance auditions for the new Hip Hop International team, and it looks like we will have a really good team representing the school.

9cl. study guidance

This week, all students have gone through a personal tutoring programme, which also prepares them to make their next educational choice. The tutors have been in the café all day and all week.

Christmas fun with Christmas decorations, Christmas bingo and preparing the Advent calendar for the community gatherings.

This week we kicked off the big competition to be the Christmas Room of the Year in the Houses. It looks like the students are breaking all records this year and it will be interesting to see what they can bring back after this extended weekend. Mathias and Nikolai spent part of their bridge building making an iron Christmas tree and the result is certainly long lasting. Real Christmas trees are not ok from a sustainability and fire risk point of view. We also want the students to use only battery chains, but otherwise it's pretty much free rein and it's going to be Christmas good!

The students' rooms are buzzing with Christmas cheer and socialising.

Photographer Martin Damgaard has visited

For almost 3 years, photographer Martin Damgaard has followed life at Ranum Efterskole College, both in everyday life, at parties and on trips. It is a voluntary and personally motivated project, which we are very happy about. Martin's photos are in black and white and fit right into the authentic afterschool life in an aesthetic and fascinating way. See and enjoy his photos here.

Sample selection for the 3rd profile period.

Today, Friday, the first exam for the 3rd period profile subjects started. The choice gives a clue as to what students and staff are interested in and which subjects we will form community and learning around this spring. In the coming week there will be presentations about the many exciting subjects, and on Saturday they will be presented to parents and students. The following week there will be an election workshop and then the final vote will take place over the Christmas break.

Students take "punishment" with a straight face.

Our teaching methods have very different effects on students. If you haven't been to morning exercise, you pay back the others who have fought through the morning darkness by helping with the evening dishes. And maybe that's not such a bad thing, because some like the community in the kitchen, even though it may not be entirely "frivolous" Watch the video below here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u3ng5IZ_ZM

Conference on Togetherness as motivation

Five years ago, the International Committee of the Ranum Efterskole Efterskoleforening proposed an International Research Conference on the Danish Free School Tradition. This week, the association and the other free school associations were able to open a nice conference at Den Frie Lærerskole in Ollerup, and we participated of course with a strong team from Ranum. Participants came from all over the world, including Kenya, South Korea, Japan, England, Germany and others. And the conference got good coverage in the media. The focus was on community "Togetherness", as the framework for development and motivation, and especially the free school's understanding of community as a means of democratic formation, popular and life education. One of the keynote speakers was Ms. Yuli Belfali, Head of the OECD Office for Education and Skills. She is responsible, among other things, for the Pisa study "Programme for International Student Assessment", which is often criticised in Denmark. She noted that in the future the Pisa study will also focus more on the educational aspects of teaching and the more qualitative values in teaching, which may be good news for Denmark.

This coming week, there will be Final Exams for all students in the morning, and over lunch there will be a Performance Project where everyone is involved in creating a musical, a big Christmas Market and then there will be information about the upcoming cultural trips, as well as the new profile subjects. There's a lot going on and it's super nice to be working together across the whole school towards the common goal of giving our guests on Saturday a great experience.
The programme for the Performance Day and the cultural subjects has been sent out via the School Plan. During the week there will be lots of updates and news on the website and on FB. Please remember small change and possibly a Christmas calendar for the rooms!

Have a great weekend

Olav Storm Johannsen
Principal