Preschool

Oulu is involved in the two-year pre-primary education experiment

Oulu has been seleted to take part in the two-year pre-primary education experiment on the Ministry of Education and Culture. In accordance with the Act of Experimentation (1046/2020), municipalities or regions consisting of municipalities were selected for the experiment at random.

The trial will begin in autumn 2021 and last until the end of May 2024. The children participating in the experiment were born in 2016 and 2017. Some of the children participatin in the experiment are randomly selected for experimental groups and some for control groups.

The early childhood education and care sites organising the experiment were randomly selected by a team of researchers from the Ministry of Education and Culture in March. Both municipal and some private daycare centres have been selected for the experiment.

The purpose of the two-year pre-primary education experiment is to:

• strengthen educational equality
• improve the quality and effectiveness of the pre-primary education
• explore coninuum between early childhood education and care and pre-primary and primary education
• find out about family servie choices
• learn about the impact of two-year preschool education of children´s development and learning conditions, social skills an the formation of healthy self-harm

Two-year preschool curriculum

The Finnish National Agency for Education has drawn up the basics of the curriculum for the two-year pre-primary experiment, and Oulu´s own two-year preschool curriculum was drawn up in spring 2021. The two-year preschool curriculum emphasises paly and learning in play, children¨s inclusion, working together and exploring learning from children´s interests.

Preschool education is provided in Early Childhood Education centres and on some school premises. The goal is to form groups that allow cooperation with the children´s future school. The formation of preschool groups and places is influenced by the number of children that have signed up for preschool. Families will be informed of the preschool place allocated to their child along with the preschool admission decision. Even if a child has been allocated a preschool place in connection with a school or in the vicinity of a school, does not guarantee this child a place in that school later on.

Preschool education is free of charge

Preschool attendance is free of charge. If preschool is complemented with part-time early education, a fee of 60% of the full-time early education fee allocated to the family will be charged. The fee will be charged fully, if the family uses the service during brakes and between semesters. Those Private daycare centres that have been accepted to give preschool education are financially supported by the City.

The child´s parents, or a person authorized by the child´s parents, are responsible for taking the child to and picking him/her up from early education or from preschool education.  Children who attend free-of-charge preschool are entitled to free transportation in some cases. This transportation does not apply to preschoolers who also attend municipal or private daycare or who attend only private preschool. An application for transportation must be handed in by the end of April. 

You can sign your child up for preschool during the period of 18 January to 31 January 2021.

You will need to fill in an electronic application. Please select the ‘Preschool registration' (signing up for preschool) option on the front page.

Preschool education in the English language is provided by Pikku-Ainon päiväkoti, on the premises of Oulu International School, for children who pass a separate language test. Preschool education in the English language will be provided if there are at least seven children who meet the selection criteria.

After attending preschool education in English in Pikku-Ainon päiväkoti, the children may continue their education at Oulu International School. The parents of the children in this preschool group are obliged to pay the costs of transportation themselves.

Bilingual preschool education is also organised in some other municipal and private daycare centres. After attending preschool education in English, children can access Oulu International School via entrance tests.

Preschool education is also organised in Swedish and German.

More information about bilingual preschool education options.

Preparatory education is for children whose Finnish language skills are on the elementary level. Observation is used to specify the level of language skills and the levels are defined in Pienten kielireppu (the language rucksack for small). The participation in preparatory education is always agreed with guardians.

In Oulu, preparatory preschool for basic education for 6-year old children is organized in municipal daycare centres. Those children who take part in preparatory education get tuition 5 hours per day on preschool working days.