Árskóli Sauðárkróki


Árskóli is an public school, located in Sauðárkrókur, northern Iceland. The towns population is 2800 people. The school has 335 students in 1st-10th grade (6-16 years old).
Innovation Journey:
Árskóli were the first school in Iceland to go 1:1 with a grade using iPads back in 2012 where 3rd grade trialed a project where every student got an iPad.

In 2013 the school started breaking down walls between classrooms and each grade was team-taught with 2-3 teachers in each class.
2014 was the year that the school started fixing it’s technology infrastructure with WiFi and moved to G Suite for Education with staff and students. Additionally, the school decided to increase collaboration by changing the physical and digital work environment by giving every teacher a MacBook computer, all staff members iPads and changing the spaces where teachers worked and prepared their lessons.

Making is a big part of the school culture where all students take sewing, wood-shop, art, dance and theatre every year. One of the big changes across the school recently has been changes to the timetables where previously the school day was divided between 40 minute blocks where different teachers teach different subjects. Now 2-3 teachers teach at least 1/2-2/3rds of the subjects and it is marked X on the timetable. Only subjects that are not marked X are the making classes and sports. This has allowed teachers more time to dive into passion projects, book projects and go deeper into the learning instead of having the day split up into 5-10 40 minute blocks.