Sotunki Upper Secondary School Info in English

Sotunki Upper Secondary School has 480 students aged from 15 to 19, and 180 adult students in its Distance Learning Centre and 28 full-time teachers. The school is situated in the eastern part of the City of Vantaa close to our capital Helsinki, and the main airport is only a 15-minute drive away from our school. Vantaa is the fourth largest city in Finland with a population of 239 000 inhabitants. The school is situated in a beautiful valley, in the middle of sport grounds. An athletics field, baseball and football fields, a swimming hall, skiing tracks and terrain suited for orienteering are all just a stone's throw away from our school.

Thanks to the excellent surroundings, our school is able to offer a wide variety of sport activities. Most upper secondary schools in Finland emphasize one or two subjects in their curriculum. Sotunki's surroundings being so ideal for many different sports, we emphasize physical education and sports. Our students have a possibility to include a training program as a part of their studies. Our school offers specialized coaching in several sports and we also work in cooperation with various sport clubs in Vantaa. Especially football, floorball, ice hockey, swimming, and athletics have been very popular sports in the past few years.

We also offer many international activities for our students. We are an Erasmus+ Accredited school, offering long and short-term exchanges to our students and staff members. We have also been certified as a European Parliament Ambassador School, and during the years 2022-2025 we are participating in the Jean Monnet Learning EU initiative with our project called Our Europe. Our school has participated in many Erasmus+, Comenius and Nordplus projects in the past two decades. We are also a part of an organization called the World School Forum, which offers our students a chance to meet fellow students from all over the world in the conferences organized through the World School Forum. In addition, we have cultural studies courses, e.g. a Swedish culture course in Stockholm every year, and different culture courses, such as Japanese and Chinese available for our students. Apart from English and Swedish, our students are able to study German, French, Spanish and Russian at school.

Our school theatre Sotungin lukioteatteri is available for all students and every year young actors from all grades participate in the production of a play in our Christmas event in December. Apart from acting in a play, students take part in at least one of the other areas of making a production: stage designing, costume designing, marketing or light designing.

Digital learning has been a part of classroom teaching in Sotunki for many years. Every classroom is equipped with digital overhead projectors, smart boards and other IT equipment. Students use their own laptops at school with digital books. Our school is specialized in virtual learning and has been one of the main developers of distance learning in southern Finland in co-operation with the Finnish National Board of Education. Sotunki Distance Learning Centre operates in the same facilities as Sotunki Upper Secondary School, and while providing an alternate route to finish unfinished upper secondary school studies, it also offers online courses for students from the other upper secondary schools in Vantaa and other municipalities.

Sotunki Upper Secondary School upholds traditions, but it is also a modern and active school. Our school motto is "Active learning in a lively atmosphere". Our teachers and students co-operate well together and form a secure and supportive community. We aim to give our students multiple opportunities to develop themselves both academically and personally as well as provide them with excellent entrance qualifications for their future studies.

Contact information:

Ms Tuija Kae

Coordinator for International Activities, Senior Teacher of English

Sotungintie 19

01200 Vantaa

tuija.kae @ eduvantaa.fi

+358 50 554 1547