17.11.2023, Ellimaija Ahonen

150 times thank you to our study tour participants!

This year we welcomed 150 brave educators all around the world to Tampere, Finland! We had the honor to meet these curious, open-minded and skilled teachers and principals from several different countries from all continents! Learning Scoop is renowned for its quality study tours, which have also been awarded as the Best Authentic Finnish Travel Products. Over the years we have been fortunate to have customers from over 60 different countries around the world. In 2023 we have provided study tours focusing on Early Childhood Education and Care, Basic Education (K-9), Principal´s work and also some tailor-made programs which are custom-made based on the needs and wishes of our customers. We also organised a couple of private study visits for individual participants.

The themes that impressed our visitors most were the trust and autonomy that teachers in Finland experience, the relaxed and tolerant atmosphere in Finnish schools, how Finnish students are taught to be so self-directed and responsible for their own actions, how highly life-skills and competencies are valued and how much they are practiced in Finnish education, how different is the approach in the curriculum and assessment from many other countries etc. It’s been fascinating to discuss these and other themes in detail with our visitors and explain the rationale behind Finnish education. Every time we talk about these themes with our fellow educators from different countries, we also learn a great deal ourselves!

We would like to say a special thank you to our hard working partners for their amazing support throughout the year. It is our pleasure to collaborate with Angela / Tours for Teachers: it is always our joy to have you and your teachers and principals from Australia and New Zealand. A big thank you team Polar Partners for your trust and co-creation: together we can serve and educate teachers from Chile. Last but not least we would like to congratulate Dr. Kenneth Vella, Ambassador of Malta to Estonia and Finland for your continuous work and support: Erasmus+ collaboration and job shadowing opportunities for Maltese teachers are something we are happy about!

A smooth collaboration between our experts, hosts, local schools, teachers, local restaurants and saunas, Seventen Tours Finnish Nature Experience, logistics and planning team is something we value a lot.

Our visitors tell us that witnessing a different education system and practices themselves, has broadened their professional understanding and perspective. Despite the differences in education systems, all our visitors tell us that they have also learned a great deal of ideas and practices that they can apply directly in their own work. That means a World to us!

We would like to share this feedback as it summarizes plenty of things that our customers experience during their stay here in Finland:

“Without a doubt, one of the most glorious PL experiences I have had.

Professionally engaging, fun and immersive. A nice balance between work and leisure. As a secondary teacher I was not sure how the “Basic Education” experience would be for me. It was delightfully inspirational, I was surprised and impressed.

Seeing and interacting with the students, teachers and executives at all the host schools was instructive, and attending the lectures was thought-provoking and enjoyable. The schools were so accommodating. I would recommend Angela and her team to any teachers interested in Finland’s unique educational structure and culture.”
Steve