Emilia is an “Angel” at Hjulsta School in Stockholm, Sweden. Angels are a specially selected team of pupils from the final year. The concept is based on the perception that children and young people who are entrusted with responsibilities will rise to meet your expectations of them.
Hi! My name is Emilia (third from the left in the picture). I’m what they all call an “Angel”. An Angel is a person who helps and supports other pupils at the school. There are not many schools that have Angels, but my school is one of them. The school is Hjulstaskolan, a school in the Swedish capital Stockholm. The school has nine grades. The pupils that quit ninth grade are either 15 or 16 years old, and it is only ninth graders that can become Angels, so I guess by now that you have figured out that I am in ninth grade and I am 15 years old. Being an Angel is both an honour and a tough duty. All the pupils in school plus teachers vote for who they think should become an Angel and 15 or 14 of the ninth graders get the opportunity. That’s why it’s such an honour - it’s a position of trust. Most of the time it is really fun, you get to talk to guests, go away for a weekend to learn how to be a good Angel, and the connection between Angels is often very strong. Sometimes, like when there are a lot of fights or lots of rubbish in school, it’s tough.
Spare Time
I spend much of my spare time at home, with my little brother and mom and dad. I also have two big sisters, but they don’t live at home anymore. In my spare time I’m engaged in the Social Democrats Youth Society here in Stockholm. I think it’s very important to engage and fight for the community you want. If you don’t fight for your belief, then you can’t complain when you don’t like the community anymore!
Another thing I’m very engaged in is AIK - one of Stockholm’s biggest sports teams. They have soccer, hockey, bandy and floorball. Personally, I just like soccer and floorball. It’s hard to explain the feeling you get when a player scores a goal in soccer and the crowd rises, screams, claps and whistles. I just love those moments. I’m pretty fanatic - I know of no other occasion when I say so many ugly words as I do when AIK lose in either soccer or floorball. Floorball is a pretty new sport and it doesn’t exist in many countries, so the audience isn’t nearly as big as it is in soccer. But one of the best things with floorball is that it’s a fun sport that’s played inside, Sweden is a very cold country and funny sports to play inside are always welcome! The thing I like doing most in my spare time must be hanging out with my wonderful friends! We can make anything fun, even if we just sit on a bench next to the sidewalk. But of course, checking guys out is always fun! Shopping is one other thing we like a lot. Probably because we all like clothes and makeup so much, I don’t know how to survive without it… Weekends we like to go to parties if we know about a good one.
Adopting the Angel system in your school
I can recommend all other schools out there in the world to introduce the Angel system. The pupils themselves are often the ones who know best, for instance they know if anyone is getting bullied or teased, and they’re the ones who can most easily stop it. If the conflict is too big, they can be the teachers’ “extra eyes”. The most important thing if the Angel system is to work is that angels can all trust each other! For me, there is one person who makes the whole thing a lot easier! She helps me when a situation is too hard - I can talk to her when I’m confused or don’t know what to do. To be honest, I don’t think she’s just one of the school Angels - I think that Shamam is a real angel too!
Well, I hope you feel like you got to know something about me and most important: about the “angels”. Bye for now and I hope you’ll have the very best day!
// Emilia
For more info about the Angels System, please visit www.hjulstaskolan.stockholm.se/angels.html
