A visit to Finland

Mrs Doris Cini and Ms Josienne Said, school head and History teacher respectively at the Agius de Soldanis Girls' Junior Lyceum, Victoria, Gozo, together with four students - Clair Dimech, Claire Galea, Justine Calleja and Deborah Borg - last month spent five days in Finland.

The group travelled to Finland to participate in a partners' meeting of a Comenius project, "Leisure Time for a Healthy Lifestyle as an Alternative".

The Gozo school has been involved in this project for two years. The other partner schools are in Finland, Austria and Poland. Ms Said writes about this wonderful experience:

A group of teachers and students from Tahvion Koulu, the Finnish partner school in Raisio, welcomed us in Helsinki. First on the agenda was a tour of the capital, which has excellent connections with other northern countries.

Among the sights we visited were the Esplanadi Park, the Senate Square with the imposingly beautiful Cathedral, the Market Square, where we mingled with the crowd milling around the numerous colourful stalls, selling fresh vegetables, fruit, bread and all kinds of Finnish handicrafts, from dolls to furs.

There was also time to visit the Sibelius monument and the Temppeliaukio church; an underground church, a structure literally hewn out of the rock. Helsinki has many islands. We visited one on which stands the historic fortress of Suomenlinna.

Eventually, after a very enjoyable day we moved to Raisio, a town near Turku. On our journey down to our destination we were amazed by the beautiful views of the Finnish countryside - water and woodland seemed to be everywhere. Finland has nearly thousands of lakes and islands. We were also mostly surprised however by the 'nightless nights', with the sun still high up at 10 p.m.

As part of the programme we visited two primary schools in Raisio and learnt a lot about the Finnish educational system. We noticed how the lessons at primary level were of 50 minutes, each followed by ten minutes of leisure time. We gave talks about Malta. All the pupils knew about Malta because of this Comenius project.

We sampled local specialties and tried local cultural habits such as the sauna.

It was a very beneficial experience because there was a great flow of ideas. Before leaving Finland we invited our hosts, as well the teachers from the other partner schools to pay us a visit in Gozo.