1 Mission statement
We, Senja videregående skole, find it important to give a varied educational offer. A diverse body of students gives the opportunity to an exciting and developing learning environment for both students and teachers. We will, through good dialogue and a respectful positive attitude, create a good working environment.
We want to facilitate our students in obtaining the best results possible. We will continuously work in developing and practicing a range of teaching and learning methods that contribute to each student receiving an education that is suited to his or her aspirations, abilities and needs. Our students are important contributors in our planning and are given responsibilities and duties.
Dialogue and cooperation are important features of our teaching and learning environment. We place our students in the core of our thinking. Our students are active contributors, and our teachers are inspiring, monitoring, knowledgeable pedagogues who are well-respected.
Senja videregående skole’s pedagogical platform is based on our slogan “MMS”:
M
Mangfold
(Diversity)
M
Mestring
(Excellence)
S
Samhold
(Unity)
Diversity through an international school environment by respecting other people’s values and traditions. Diversity also means that each and every one of us is unique and that people with their differences can also be right.
Excellence through strong academic tradition; by maintaining high standards (highly qualified teaching staff as well as high academic achievement standards); by helping and aiding students to achieve their academic goals through focusing on approaches to teaching and approaches to learning.
Unity: Senja videregående skole wants to be a school with good relations between all groups in our organization. We interact with each other in a positive manner. We focus on bringing people together and creating good learning environments with emphasis on student democracy.
As learning community, we develop individuals and groups in the school environment as inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflected.
As learning community, we develop individuals and groups in the school environment as inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflected.
Focusing on academic progress and success within the educational programme of the IB, is a part of promoting excellence and thus maintaining high standard in the teaching and learning. We know that our students come from a diverse background academically and socially, we therefore need to pay attention to special needs of the individual student and the group of students.
The basis for all teaching and learning is that it is customized the learner. Close student monitoring with focus on approaches to teaching and learning will cover many of the students’ needs in the classroom. If the conditions are of a kind that creates a disadvantage for the learner, inclusive arrangements must be made in order to create equal access and fairness. All inclusive arrangements are based on educational evidence collected by teachers in addition to psychological/psycho-educational/medical documentation. All arrangements made are done in cooperation with the student and his/her legal guardians if the student is minor (under the age of 18).
Students in our school come from a number of different cultures and countries and have many different mother tongues. The IB students use English as a Lingua Franca, still they speak more than 10 different languages. According to the school platform of learning, we do not see this as a problem, rather as a challenge and an asset to the diverse learning environment. Every person between the ages of 16-19 living in Norway has the right to three years of high-school or education in the apprentice system, leading to a professional competence or an exam on the level of baccalaureate. This means that in practice, all youth of this age go to school. Given such a diverse body of students, there will be situations where students have special needs and the school has to adapt to those, in order to give all students the possibility to obtain the best results possible as well as maintaining the integrity of the assessment. All arrangements are individualized, evaluated, and monitored. The arrangements may change over time as some conditions that required the arrangements might also change.