Courage

The State of Art Report

Albertslund - Denmark
2016

The Educational system in Denmark

Our public school is among the best when it comes to
developing students to be-come active citizens with fine
social competences. Together with the parents, the public
school shall further the students many- sided development
and education by giving them knowledge and skills to prepare
them for further and higher education and to encourage their
desire to keep learning.
The public school enhances students ability to understand
and take part in the democratic processes. The students are
well prepared for their future lives as citizens of Denmark.
Education in Denmark is free and compulsory at the primary
and lower secondary levels, with at least 82% continuing to
higher levels, which are also government subsidized. Danish
private schools are also government-subsidized via a voucher system; at least 13% of all
students attend these private schools at the lower levels.
The lower secondary school that consists of form level 7 - 9 in the public school is crucial
for the students chances to complete an upper secondary education later. But the lower
secondary school does not manage to sufficiently develop the students competences in
order for them to be able to choose and complete an upper secondary education.
Approximately 92 per cent of the students who finished the public school in 2011 are
expected to complete an upper secondary education. Even so, a relatively large group
still finds it difficult to choose and complete an upper secondary education.
The academic standards in the public school need improvement. On the one hand
building on the present strength of the public school, and on the other hand by taking up
the challenges confronting the public school will achieve this.
A new agreement regarding the Danish School system /Elementary School
THE GOVERNMENT will maintain and develop the public schools strengths and academic
standards by working with the following three main goals:
1) The public school must challenge all students to reach their full potential.
2) The public school must lower the significance of social background on academic
results.
3) Trust in the school and student well being must be enhanced through respect for
professional knowledge and practice in the public school.
These goals shall contribute to setting a clear direction and a high mutual level of
ambition for the development of the public school, and furthermore, to ensure a clear
framework for a systematic and continuous evaluation.

In order to fulfil these three goals, the reform of the public school, based on three main
areas of improvements, mutually supportive of one another, and which might contribute
to the improvement of the students academic standards:

A longer and varied school day with more and improves teaching and
learning.
An enhanced professional development of teachers, pedagogical staff and school
principals
Few and clear objectivities and simplification of rules and regulations
A lot of specific activities will be taken to develop the compulsory school. A
complete description of the new law will be available through this link:
http://eng.uvm.dk/~/media/UVM/Filer/English/PDF/131007%20folkeskolereformaftal
e_ENG_RED.ashx
A longer and more varied school
day
More sports and movement
activities
Better teaching
Strengthening foreign languages
The open school
Fewer goals but clearer
A better teaching environment
and quiet in the classroom
Parental cooperation and
student involvement
Supportive teaching
Homework assistance
More lessons in Danish and
Maths
New subjects: wood and metal
work and design + food
knowledge
Improved final years of
compulsory schooling and
transition to post compulsory
education
Competence development for
teachers, pedagogues and principals
A public school resource centre with consultants will be established
Few clear targets and simplification of rules

Inclusion
Unfortunately, in the past years the public school has separated too many students from
the ordinary classroom teaching. The number of students referred to special education

has increased drastically. In addition, the expense to special education has increased too
and now constitutes approximately 30 per cent of the public schools total expenditure. At
the same time however, there is no documentation to substantiate that students enrolled
at special schools and attending special classes perform better academically compared to
the expected performance in the public school with ordinary classroom teaching.
To meet this challenge, more students need to be included in the public school.
Consequently, the government has agreed on a range of initiatives together with the
member association of Danish municipalities Local Government Denmark (KL) that will
support the local municipalities in the coming changes. Among other things, these
initiatives include a new legislation on inclusive education in the public school, continuous
monitoring of the change moving towards greater inclusion, establishment of the National
Inclusion Counselling Unit, which is an outgoing consulting unit, aiming to support
improved inclusion in preschool, school and leisure time facilities by collaboration with
municipalities on meeting local needs.
These initiatives shall ensure support and dialogue
among the central stakeholders of the objective on
increased inclusion in the public school.
These initiatives shall also contribute to the
improvement of every childs skills through
inclusion by strengthening general teaching at the
same time as the individual receives support
together with his or her classmates. Also, the longer
and more varied school day will create the
conditions that ensure room for every child in the
public school.
To support the efforts made in regards to inclusive education, it will be possible to provide
some dispensations in order for some schools to offer classes with shorter school days.
The longer and varied school day will also encompass the segregated special education
offers. However, in the legislative realization of the longer and varied school day, the
need for flexibility will be taken into account in order to create a good and safe
environment for students with special needs.
Youth education
In 2015 a vocational school reform was completed, whose aim was to create more
attractive business education. The academic level should be enhanced and established
new programs that include both training and courses at upper secondary level for the
young people who wanted a degree in technical subjects.
Before 2015 there was no specific entry requirements for most vocational education and
training was predominantly practical organized with a flexible start period of 20-60
weeks, depending on the student's level and qualifications.
The new reform requires a final
examination from school with a certain

level in Danish and Mathematics. Over 20% of young people from Albertslund
municipality who left school in the summer of 2015 did not achieve the required level in
Mathematics.
(See: www.talomuddannelse.dk/tal)
There are different opportunities for young people who cannot immediately be admitted
to vocational training. Some choose a "ready for training" courses, which are taught in
the courses required for admission, others choose a production school where the teaching
is through working with productions and where Danish and Mathematics learned through
practical application in the workshop the student has chosen.
Local/regional level
Regional level: Student drop out and post-compulsory education in Albertslund
and the Western Region of Copenhagen
According to the Ministry of Education's own figures, the dropout rate in vocational
rounded to 46%.
There are young people for whom the transfer between public schools safe environment
and vocational schools are too much. It suggests that the transition between primary and
vocational education should be made easier, so that young people regularly diverted and
prepared for vocational training.
There are young people who after primary school choose to get an unskilled job. Some of
these young people want to educate themselves, but are not motivated in the classroom.
They could be motivated to start training if the training can be at work, or if their work
can be transferred into the program. Also, there may be companies that have unskilled
jobs that could easily include training aspects. There is a possibility that some young
people can be caught up and start training, and that there are companies that - with the
right incentives - sees the advantage in developing training prospects at work rather than
continue unskilled jobs.
Finally, there is a potential in supporting young people in vocational schools to complete
their education. Some young people need support - and perhaps alternatives - in this
period. For example, after the basic program, there is a waiting period of two months,
where they leave the young people to find an internship on their own. But there is a
group of young people, who already before the waiting period is known not to find an
internship on there one.
Whichever way the young people choose, education is an important foundation to
develop his life and an important qualification for a better life. Young people who
complete upper secondary education is less unemployed and receive higher pay. They
come less on cash benefits and early retirement, and they commit less crime. At the
same time an education helps to support the personal development and give young
people more opportunities to develop his skills. Education is therefore the surest path to a
stable and stimulating adult and working life.

Local level: Youth Strategy

In 2009, Albertslund Municipality implemented its first Youth Strategy, which ran until
2014. The target group are young people up till the age of 30.
The goal was that 84% of the youth, who attend 9th grade in 2014/15, should complete a
secondary education. In this period Albertslund has gone from 74% who were expected to
complete an education in 2007 to 84% that would complete an education en 2012.
Background for youth strategy
Despite progress, there is still a relatively large group of young people who are not
expected to complete a youth education. At the same time, there are relatively many
young people who start their adulthood as cash benefits, just like the education among
city residents is lower than the national average. Furthermore, there are a relatively high
proportion of young people who drop out of education or training along the way. This is
the background for making another transversal youth strategy with a vision that all
young people in Albertslund complete an education.
Overall, education is one of the factors that have the greatest impact on how young
people are doing the rest of your lives. Young people who are educated are less
unemployed and receive higher pay. They come less on cash benefits and early
retirement, and they commit less crime. Education is helping to support the personal
development and give young people better opportunities to develop his skills.
Training is therefore an essential element to ensure young people a good and stable start
in adulthood, and that they get a permanent attachment to the labor market. Therefore,
education must be one of the threads that make all citizens in Albertslund competent and
allows them to exploit their full potential.
The strategy covers an area in which many different actors are involved and have contact
with young people across the municipal organization. Just as there are many factors that
influence whether young people have completed training. It may be the young people's
professional skills, their ability to adapt to a new environment, their psychosocial status,
their housing, their motivation to be in education, their expectations for an upcoming job,
their economic situation and a variety of other factors.
The structure of youth strategy
The youth strategy is based on four common principles to be applied across the relevant
stakeholders and departments in Albertslund. It is:
1)
2)
3)
4)

We
We
We
We

focus on children and young people's resources and potentials

focus on the child / the young always proceed
act as early as possible
involve the relevant people and the community

In addition, youth strategy follows three focus areas / overall ambitions:

A) Young people in
Albertslund are motivated and
socially, individually and
professionally ready to finish
a youth education
B) The interdisciplinary
cooperation and the relational
coordination around young
people in the municipality
provides a more consistent
approach to the individual
child / young
C) All young people are in education, ordinary work or process that makes the young
people ready to finish an education
The stakes in the Youth Strategy has education as a common thread. Youth strategy has
therefore focus on initiatives and activities that support young people to get an education
and then get a job. In this way Young Strategy is an umbrella of policies, strategies,
initiatives and activities in Albertslund that influence young people's opportunities to get
an education.
Specifically the vision has one goal, which is that 95% of young people in Albertslund are
expected to have at least one youth education by 2017. The target is set at 95% rather
than 100% due to the fact that there is a group of young people who have such difficulty
in implementing a formal youth education that this goal will not be reached. But the
ambition is still that the municipality prepares all young people to complete their
education, even if its not for a formal qualifying youth education. For the group of the
remaining 5% it could happen by giving these young people alternative education options
that do not officially count as a youth education, but still helps to improve young people's
skills and life chances.
Target groups
The project embraces all young
people who are starting 8th grade
and up to and including 25 years as
it
is both the objective to strengthen
guidance in primary school and to
get young unskilled to begin
vocational training. Nevertheless,
the project has a special focus on
young people who are at risk for failure to start or complete a youth education. This
means that the target for action is made up of public school students in 7-10 th grade and
young people who have completed primary school, who have not completed upper
secondary education, youth vocational courses that are at risk of dropping out and young
people in unskilled jobs.

The special focus will be at young people under the age of 25, who are not immediately
able to start or complete a youth education or who have dropped out of training and work
What works?
During the project will research and investigate some different initiative to prevent young
people to drop out of school, training or work.
Our case studies will search the possibilities and outcomes of a closer cooperation
between the secondary school, the vet institutions, the Youth Centre and the sport clubs.
No doubt that clear objectives for students learning as well as future activities will
contribute to an increase of academic standards for the academically gifted students as
well as for the academically weak.
Albertslund Youth Centre
The 1st of August 2013 the 10. Element and Ungdomsskolen was
merged into one Youth Centre. This gathers the municipality 10 th grade
offerings and Youth School current full-time and leisure-time education
organization.
By bringing together the 10th Element and Youth School students and
offers a place is achieved the following advantages:
To make it easier to organize courses to suit individual pupils, including the desire free
of choice
subjects, elective courses and bridging courses.
A comprehensive plan provides better opportunities for an effective use of resources,
that is, building
framework, teachers and materials.
That will allow for a more diverse selection and free of choice subjects.
To create opportunities for professional and educational inspiration and development
across all
activities of the centre.
That can create a diverse learning environment that is similar to what the students
meet at the following
schools
Beyond this, the young environment could be developed in cooperation with other offers
for the age group. It could be the club facilities; Music School offers and Art School offers.
Albertslund Youth Center 10th grade department is Albertlunds 10th-grade school.
The school offers students to go to the 9 - or 10 th grade final tests in the subjects Danish,
mathematics, English, German and physics / chemistry. The 10 th grade department has
each year, between 100-120 students - especially from Albertslund, but also from other
municipalities.

In 2015/16 The 10th grade offered the following Themes:

- Media
- Business: Here, students work two days in 10 weeks at
the business school
CPH WEST
- Physical Education
- International
- Science
- Social and health
- Tek10: Here, students get two days a week for 10 weeks
teaching at Copenhagen Technical School.
- Education Ready Courses: The course has continuous
intake of individual courses designed to prepare young people
to take an
upper secondary education (This class is part of the
"Partnership" the
target age for up to 22 years)
Furthermore, the 10th grade receives funds from Social Security and the Ministry of
Integration to work intensively with home-school collaboration and parental impact on the
young taking a realistic choice of education.
Glostrup Albertslund Production School

Glostrup municipality founded the Production School in 1997. At January 1st 2013
Albertslund municipality stepped in as a partner. The two municipalities are now equal
represented at the school board. The Production School receives students from
Albertslund and Glostrup and forms together only about 1/3 part of the schools total.
The location in the school system is between primary school (up to 10 th grade) and youth
education. The target group is youth, which are not able to complete an ordinary
education. The target group is people from the age of 16-24 most of them are under 20
years. The goal with the teaching is to clarify and strengthen the young peoples skills in
order to start an education
program or perform a job.
There are about 200 young
people starting at the school
throughout the year. The
amounts of time they attend are

individually, and the average for school period is about 7 months. Many students follow a
school year from August to July.
The difficulties of the youth are usually about academic issues, but also personal and
social problems. Many feels lonely and have felt excluded from the community, and many
having serious domestic conditions. Some have psychiatric problems such as ADHD, ADD,
Tourettes syndrome, autism, anxiety or social phobia. Some have addictions and find it
difficult to function without marijuana.
With the new vocational school reform from August 2015, there are many students, which
do not meet the requirements to be admitted to a vocational training. In Albertslund
municipality it is more than 20% of young people that left school in 2015, which do not
fulfil the grade requirements in mathematics, and therefore is rejected. This means a
great find for manufacturing the Production School, but at the same time new
expectations for educational content.
Traditionally, the teaching at a production school characterized by practical work on real
productions, and theoretical instruction fits easily in everyday life. Teaching is organized
into 12 different workshops, from traditional craft in wood, metal, textile and kitchen, to
various forms in form of media, graphics, game development and support, as well as
educational subjects as working with sports, children and the elderly.
The teachers are trained in the area they teach, but do not necessarily have a teaching
degree. Students can choose to follow the Danish and mathematics teaching at the
school, and there is also a special team for dyslexics. The school also works with a local
vocational school for practical applied mathematics. The course started in 2015 and
planned development of the course in 2016.
The school works with communities and offers activities of various kinds. For example:
Sports, games or creative activities. Once in a while the students can participate in
afternoon or evening activities.
In 2016 a new food project will begin, where the students will prepare different kinds of
food, and arrange and participate in social aspects around meals.

Organization of sports in Denmark

Denmark has around 16.000 sports clubs. At national level, the clubs
are organized in three main organizations, with many of the clubs
being a member of more than one
of these.
National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark
(DIF) is the main organization for 61 federations and has more than
1,9 mio members distributed among app. 9.300 associations. In
addition to being responsible for both elite and amateurlevel/recreational sports at association level, DIF is also responsible
for Danish participation in the Olympic Games. DIF is an umbrella

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organization and handles the tasks of the sports associations, which again safeguards the
interests of the athletes.
The other two main organizations are: Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations (DGI)
and Danish Company Sports Association (DFIF). A fourth organization, Team Danmark, is
responsible for the overall planning of elite-level sports in Denmark.
Finally it is important to mention that 86 percent of all children in Denmark are engaged
in sporting life and volunteers perform activities and that the vast majority of tasks in
Danish sports clubs.

Albertslund Sports Association (AIF)

An umbrella organization for 9 sports clubs in Albertslund with more than
3.000 members altogether. One of these clubs is AIF Fodbold (AIF Football),
a member of Danish Football Association (DBU) the biggest of the
federations in DIF. DBU is servicing 1.600 football clubs (at all levels) with
335.000 members in the country and is also responsible for the national
team.
AIF Fodbold was founded in 1920 and holds right now 680 members 70 percent of which
are from 4 to 16 years old. More than 60 people are involved in the clubs activities on a
voluntary basis every day.
Expenses for tournament participation, coaching, sports equipment etc. are paid for
partly by municipal funds and partly by club dues and to a certain extent by
sponsorships. The club dues are at the moment between 850 d.kr. and 2000 d.kr.
annually.
Key-activities and -tasks at AIF Fodbold throughout the year

Football practice/training and coaching

Tournament participation in Denmark and abroad
Club and tournament administration
Education of trainers, coaches and referees
Various social activities for club members
AIF Youth Soccer Tournament (*)

(*) Due every year at Whitsun. This year 200 football teams from Denmark, Skotland,
Holland, Germany, Sweden et al. will participate

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