Reykjavik - School Report Question and Answers
Are there are any problems with exclusionary behavior, cliques, or bullying at this school? Please describe any problems your children may have experienced in this area.
My child has not experienced any problems, though we have heard of another student in his class experiencing problems with bullying. In that case, the child's parents were having regular meetings with the school administration to try to resolve the problem. It was a challenging situation because the "bullies" were brothers, so it felt like 2 against 1. Although I was not directly involved in the situation, I think it was something that could have happened at any school. In this case, it was exacerbated by the fact that the classroom was very small (only 12 kids) so all the kids had to interact regularly whether they got along or not. Also, the classroom had 2 grades together, and the child who felt bullied was one of the youngest in the class. - Jun 2023
It seems that bullying is tolerated much more in Icelandic schools than it would be in the United States, and I have heard stories of kids being bullied without consequences to the perpetrator. - Jul 2022
Yes., which is funny because generally Icelandic children were very warm and open to kids, my child had a lot of friends. There were friends who went to the school, but my child even noticed they acted different at school versus in the neighborhood. - Jan 2022
No, everyone was integrated very well with all children playing games together during recess. - Mar 2015
There have been incidents of bullying. When these occurred, teachers, students and parents immediately met to come up with viable solutions. - Aug 2014
I believe this happens in most schools whether in Iceland, or somewhere else. However, this being said, I have noticed that Icelandic children tend to "cuss" more and have a more "hard-core" vocabulary. Though we are not used to this coming from the U.S., I too, saw this as an opportunity to teach my kids to deal with it. Basically, just because someone else does something inappropriate does not mean they should follow suit (as tempting as it may be). This was a good lesson in self-control. - May 2014
Yes. There have been problems with host school students but mostly internal to ISI students. Teachers and the administration failed to address the issues from the onset which resulted in some instances of physical violence between students. - Apr 2014
There have been some incidents of the Icelandic kids giving our kids a hard time. - Mar 2014
