Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB
She would have liked to go there herself: Queen Sonja visits Norwegian school in Spain
Queen Sonja ended her trip to Spain with a visit to the Norwegian School in Málaga. After an hour and a half of singing, dancing and pupils' work, she said she wished she could have gone to a school like it as a child.
The day after opening the Munch–Picasso exhibition in Málaga, Queen Sonja visited the Norwegian School in Málaga, in Arroyo de la Miel in Benalmádena, on Friday. There she met pupils and staff, and saw what a school day is like and what the school means to the Norwegians living on the Costa del Sol.
"It was an exceptional school. You could only wish you had been able to go to a school like this when you were little," the Queen said after the visit.
Singing, dancing and ukulele
The visit lasted an hour and a half. The Queen was welcomed by the pupil council leader and the youngest pupils, and was treated to singing and dancing in the school courtyard. The school leavers presented their mosaic project, and the Queen dropped in on classes in social studies, music, and arts and crafts.
The Queen noticed that most of those playing were boys, she told NTB. She believes the threshold for starting to play seems to be higher for men.
"I wish I could have gone to a school like this myself when I was little, or gone back to school," she told NTB.
Following the Norwegian curriculum since 1989
The Norwegian School in Málaga is a private primary and lower secondary school with 125 pupils, from year 1 to year 10. It lies 10 to 15 kilometres southwest of central Málaga, was founded in 1989 and follows the Norwegian curriculum. The head teacher is Trude Jahren. Culture Minister Lubna Jaffery also took part in the visit.
The trip to Spain is the Queen's first official journey abroad since King Harald died in August. The evening before, she opened the Munch–Picasso exhibition at the Picasso Museum in Málaga.