Ylitornio High School
Overview
Ylitornio High School is one of the ca 700 Apple Distinguished Schools in the world! We are internationally well-known and rewarded for our digital learning environment that emphasizes transferable skills, creativity, and collaboration and enables personalized learning. We are a school with many international connections and therefore, very active participants in cross-curricular student mobility projects with schools around Europe. We also have ongoing virtual collaboration with schools around the world and arrange annual language trips as a part of our English and German studies. We are also one of the very few private upper secondary schools in Finland.
The school is located in Lapland, in the beautiful Torne River Valley, by the border with Sweden. We have excellent surroundings and facilities for a variety of seasonal indoor and outdoor activities. The school is located in the center of the village, it's a walking distance of all services needed: the health care center, pharmacy, bus station, railway station, sports hall, swimming hall and gym, ice hockey hall, ski center, library, youth center, shops, restaurants, ATM, outdoor activity areas, apartments, etc. The closeness to the Swedish border (10km to the nearest village in Sweden) doubles many of our services and gives this area a special cultural distinctiveness.
We have four beautiful seasons and every season has its own character and charm. Ylitornio is the southernmost place in Finland where the sun doesn't set at all during the summer (+15-+30 C) months. In the autumn (+10--5 C) we have gorgeous autumn colors and the northern lights -the season already begins in September. In the winter (-5--25 C) the area looks like a winter wonderland with snow-load on tree crowns. In the spring (-5-+15C) we enjoy blue skies and sun on the snow that slowly melts away and welcomes a new summer.
Ylitornio is situated about a 2-hour drive or less from many cities on both sides of the Finnish-Swedish border: it's 60 km to the city of Tornio, 110 km to Santa Claus' hometown Rovaniemi, 160 km to the city of Luleå (Sweden) and 190 km to the city of Oulu. It's about 800 km from Helsinki.
Ylitornio, information on the website
Requirements
No GPA requirement
Motivation video in Finnish
Interview in Finnish
Certified B1.1 level of Finnish language skills
Study line: General line, Sports line, Digital Tools and Creativity line
General education, national and local upper secondary school syllabus and curriculum. Our focus areas are STEM (12 local credits for advanced math, physics, and chemistry), digital tools and creativity (14 local credits), and sports (24 local credits for ice hockey and 10 for any other sports).
Expenses
In our school, every student receives a free iPad (incl. all apps used for learning) and free textbooks. There are also free laptops available to use at school if needed. Free student health care and SEN support are provided for all students. Every student is entitled to a free warm school meal during school days. We also provide our international students with two evenings a week -vouchers for after-school free-time activities arranged by the municipality. There are a lot of opportunities for eg. different sports activities.
The rent for two bedroom (+livingroom+ separate kitchen) municipal apartment is about 650 euros a month (including heating and water). These apartments could also be suitable for shared use. In addition to the monthly rent, there is a cost for eg. operating electricity and home insurance. The municipal apartments are not furnished. The cost for a mobile phone subscription in Finland is about 20€/month.
Accommodation
The facilities of accommodation vary depending on the need and wishes of the tenant. There are mainly one-master bedroom apartments (bedroom+ living room+ separate kitchen, municipal) and private apartments or houses with several bedrooms to rent.
Follow us on social media
Instagram (Ylitornion lukio)
TikTok (@ylitornionlukio)
Facebook (Ylitornion lukio YYKL)
Twitter (Headteacher tweets)
Spotify (Aavankutsu-podcast)
Finest Future webinar