Well yesterday morning we visited a Kindergarten called Little Heroes, it was a new Kindergarten that had opened in August, we were shown around the different rooms and Annika (Kindergarten owner) talked to us about how they run the Kindergarten. They spend 2-3 hours outside per day and will only stop going outside at -30 ! A message the Finnish people live by is there’s not bad weather it’s inappropriate clothing. When we were there it snowed!!! We visited a local park where the children played for around 40 minutes. In the Kindergarten they speak three languages (English, Finnish and Mandarin). Children can attend Little Heroes until the age of 6 where they would then go on to Pre-School. There were different areas in the rooms and the children independently went to different activities. They all ate lunch together with the staff (it had been brought in from a restaurant) even at the age of 2 the children were able to use cutlery independently and it was very calm. We had a lovely morning and it was a pleasure to visit.

From there we travelled back to to Forenom Apartments (where we are staying) to add more layers of clothing and it was onto Helsinki. We had lunch in Cafe Ursula overlooking one of the 330 islands of Helsinki then it was onto the British Embassy. We had to travel through security checks and met with Richard Shackleton who is Deputy Head of Mission and Heidi (Finnish national who leads education in the British Embassy) they spoke to us about the Finnish education system and their roles.

After this we went back to Helsinki centre for some food shopping where I saw a tin of ‘Bear’ that’s right 🐻 BEAR! Really didn’t appeal to my appetite and don’t think I will try it, there is also reindeer on the menu in some food places! It was then back to Leppävaara (Forenom apartment) for a meeting to write a report and then bed!

Mr Allen