School year to start on 11 August in Espoo

9.8.2022 13.01
Pupils doing tasks in a school book.
Photo: Taru Turpeinen

The school year starts in pre-primary education, comprehensive schools and upper secondary schools in Espoo on Thursday 11 August. 

Small and bigger learners will start their school year in mid-August. A total of 3,600 new first-graders and 3,550 pre-primary pupils will start their school journey. Almost 2,500 new students will start in our upper secondary schools. There are a total of almost 33,700 pupils in basic education and nearly 7,000 students in upper secondary schools. 

School year to start normally after two years of COVID-19 

In the 2022–2023 school year, early childhood education, pre-primary education, basic education and general upper secondary education will be organised in accordance with the legislation valid in normal conditions. The temporary legislative amendments put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic are no longer in force, and as a rule, all pupils and students will participate in contact teaching.  

After exceptional times, it is important to focus on ensuring normal and good everyday life for all children and young people. It should also be ensured that personnel are able to focus on teaching and education. Indeed, the focus of teaching and education will be on bouncing back from the pandemic years this school year throughout the country. 

New schools to open and construction of Matinkylä upper secondary school to proceed 

Pohjois-Tapiola middle school and Seppo primary school will merge to make a united comprehensive school. The school’s activities will start under the Pohjois-Tapiolan koulu name in a new building this autumn. 

Years 1–7 will start in the new Perkkaa school, as the pupils of the former Perkkaanpuisto school will move to a new building. In the coming years, middle school grades 8 and 9 will also be established in the school. New youth facilities will also be opened in the school building.  

The pupils of the former Latokaski school will also receive a new school building, as they will move to Nauriskaski school, which will start this school year.  

Pupils of Jousenkaari school will move from temporary facilities to a new school building, and once Nuuksio school is closed, the former Nuuksio pupils will move to Karhusuo school.  

The Swedish-language Kungsgårdsskolan och Kungsgårds daghem school and day care centre has also been completed. The new school and day care centre building was built near a historically valuable old school in Kurttila. The two-storey new building provides healthy and safe facilities for approximately 390 Swedish-language primary school pupils as well as for pre-primary and day care children and staff. 

The construction work in Matinkylä general upper secondary school is under way, and young people applying to Kaitaa general upper secondary school through the joint application system in early spring 2023 will now need to apply to Matinkylä upper secondary school. School work in the new Matinkylä upper secondary school building will start in January 2024. 

Cultural instructors to support schools and multilingual students and their families 

A total of 8,100 multilingual pupils will start basic education this school year. This autumn 39 preparatory education groups start in many schools, and new groups are established if needed. 

Pupils in Espoo speak 141 different languages as their mother tongue. This school year own mother tongue instruction is organised in 40 different languages. 

We offer language-aware teaching in all schools in Espoo. Strengthening the Finnish language skills of multilingual learners, narrowing the differences in learning outcomes, preventing segregation and supporting successful integration is implemented in good cooperation with various interest groups. 

Culture instructors in basic education support students, families and schools. This school year, cultural instruction is available in Arabic, Kurdish, Dari/Farsi, Somali, Thai, Russian, Estonian and Ukrainian. 

This school year four cultural instructors will start also in upper secondary schools. They facilitate cooperation between students, school personnel and families. Cultural instructors help young people with an immigrant background and their families in Arabic, Somali, Chinese and Russian. 

Four cultural instructors start in upper secondary schools.Photo: Taru Turpeinen

Service addressing online bullying and harassment to help pupils 

In the upcoming school year, Espoo schools will employ new ways of intervening in bullying and harassment online. The SomeBuddy service will be available to pupils in grades 1–9 as well as for teaching staff and student welfare. 

The service utilises artificial intelligence, but children, young people and adults will always be able to talk to real people in the service. Via SomeBuddy, pupils and staff of comprehensive schools in Espoo will be assisted by lawyers, social psychologists and a psychologist who are specialised in social media. 

Click here to read more about how to start using SomeBuddy.  

Character Crow to teach 4,000 first-graders in Espoo to recognise their strengths this autumn 

This autumn, the City of Espoo will provide 4,000 first-graders and their guardians as well as 200 teachers with a ‘Ilon palautus’ (bringing back the joy) package, including training and a mobile app to support the identification of the strengths and successes of the child.   

The package contains six webinars for guardians in Finnish, Swedish and English. The webinars will explain what is at the core of positive pedagogy: even small successes are worthy of attention and increase self-confidence, with which the child challenges themselves for their next success. Used on a mobile device or computer, the app will help keep track of the family’s successes and make shared progress visible.  

The ‘Ilon palautus’ package, based on the See the Good! series, is tailored for schools and pupils in Espoo by a company called Positive Learning. It is part of the Healthy Espoo development programme goals to strengthen the mental wellbeing of the residents of Espoo. 

Holiday periods in the 2022–2023 school year  

Autumn holidays are taken in schools and upper secondary schools on 17–21 October 2022. The autumn semester will end on 22 December 2022 in the City’s schools and upper secondary schools. The spring semester will start on Monday 9 January 2023 after the Christmas break. 

The term dates and holidays for the entire school year can be found on this page.

  • Growth and Learning
  • Preschool
  • Basic Education
  • General Upper Secondary Education