About Norden
A small Finnish school in Helsinki, open since 2013.
We opened in August 2013 as Kielo International School in Malmi. The original goal was simple: bring the rigour of the Finnish national curriculum to internationally-mobile families, taught entirely in English. We renamed to Norden to reflect a broader Nordic identity. Thirteen years in, the school remains small by design — we grew the staff, never the class sizes.
Vanha Helsingintie 2, 00700 Helsinki
What we value
The CARE values, in practice.
Every school lists values. We try to write ours down as what they look like on a Tuesday morning, in our classrooms — not as abstractions.
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C
Caring
A teacher who notices the new student is sitting alone at lunch and quietly seats themselves nearby. A class assistant who learns every child's name in the first week.
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A
Acceptance
A Year 5 classroom where four mother tongues are spoken at break, and the lesson keeps going in English. Cooperation valued ahead of competition.
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R
Responsibility
A Year 8 who hands in homework on time because they want to. Staff who follow up with families the same day, not the next week.
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E
Excellence
A science lab where pupils argue over the right way to set up the experiment. A teacher who marks every essay with two specific suggestions.
The team
A small, international faculty.
Five teachers, three administrators. They came to Norden from five different countries (Albania, Bangladesh, Finland, Hungary, Spain), between them holding several master's degrees in education, leadership, intercultural communication and learning digitalisation.
An honest note about how we operate
A recognised private school under Finnish home-education law.
Norden operates as a private school under Finnish home-education legislation (kotikoulu), in cooperation with the Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa education departments. Day-to-day this looks like any other school — children arrive in the morning, learn through the day, go home in the afternoon. The legal frame is what differs: families maintain home-education status with their local authority, and we are the school that delivers the education.
The honest part: Norden does not itself issue a Finnish graduation certificate at the end of Grade 9. Our leavers either sit the Finnish national exam to continue in lukio or vocational upper secondary, or continue in international and English-medium upper secondary in Helsinki or abroad. We explain the routes clearly on the after Grade 9 page.
Families consider that choice with their eyes open. Many find, after a year or two, that the trade is well worth it: a small school where the curriculum is Finnish and the language is theirs.