When the two Maltese (I was accompanied by a friend of mine, an ex-educator, now retired, who came in his personal capacity) arrived at Horsens train station from Copenhagen we were greeted by Torben Hansen, the amiable Deputy Headteacher at Lundskolen who drove us to the Scandic, a lovely, impeccably kept hotel in beautiful Bygholm Park.

Ducks, geese, birds of prey and other wildlife roam free (and safe) in the park and its abundant ponds and waterways. No wonder visitors to Denmark are struck by the evident care that people and organisations take of the environment, including the local fauna and flora – Denmark has ongoing forestry and environmental cooperation arrangements with its Scandinavian neighbours.

Each morning teachers from Lundskolen would come to the hotel in their cars and then drive their 10 guests to Lund, a little town where the school itself is situated, again surrounded by beautiful Mother Nature reaching out right into the school grounds. An interesting and varied programme had been prepared.

The primary reason for the visit was for the visitors to see at first hand how the Danish school functioned – its managerial and organisational procedures, classroom arrangements including delivery of lessons, curricular provision (including the use of Information Technology), extracurricular arrangements, provision for children with special needs, parental and community involvement and other interesting facets of educational work.

Another important reason was for the four schools to work together on the development of a common website. Naturally, we had all gone well prepared, taking with us CDs loaded with text and images – about our respective countries, towns, schools, staff, pupils, parents and the wider community. The common website (which I hasten to add is still incomplete, so please excuse a number of errors) can be viewed at www.lundskolen.horsens.dk/comenius

We, as guests, were taken round Lundskolen to view its considerable facilities, including play areas, a workshop, music room, large hall and an indoor pool. We saw the Comenius projects and models done by the children proudly exhibited in a long corridor. The teachers had obviously instructed the children about Wales, Italy and Malta and they had done their own research using the Internet and library books.

Quite a number of exhibits centred around Malta’s glorious past – our unique Neolithic temples, the Knights of St John, the imposing bastions and other fortifications, the Great Siege against the Turks – things and events very appealing to young boys and girls aged between five and 14.

We visited different classrooms, speaking to teachers and pupils, watching lessons, examining the children’s work and projects. We attended several lessons. The first was a practical woodwork lesson for a Year 6 (mixed) class. No wonder Denmark has such a good reputation for fine woodworking – they start them young over there!

Ditte Thommesen delivered a Maths lesson on length using measuring tapes, rulers, trundle wheels .... naturally followed by practical work both in class and in the school play areas. In the school library we attended a reading session and answered the many questions the children put to us – it was a very active exchange. Throughout the visit our encounters with people everywhere made one thing certain – Danish people are very interested in Malta and Gozo and would like to come here one day.

In a Year 7 class, 12 and 13-year-olds were working at computers researching projects they had selected. They were using the Mediator Pack (an IT presentation tool similar but not identical to Power Point) to prepare projects about which they would later talk in front of their peers, using different equipment – flip charts, OVPs, models. It was evident that there is an emphasis on IT-based resources. Some youngsters complained to us that Mediator is only accessible at the school, but not on their own home computers! Topics the children had selected for projects included: Supercomputers, The Bicycle, Steam Engines, Alfred Nobel and Dynamite, Cameras, The Telephone and Parachutes.

During a “Decision-Making lesson” for Year 3 pupils, the children had to decide for themselves certain things – what subjects to do at school on a set day, the time arrangements for lessons, activities during the lunch break, what sporting equipment they would use on that day and so on. Decision-making lessons train children for adult life and are considered important. On the local scene PSD (Personal and Social Development) lessons similarly address the need for the attainment of personal skills, including decision-making by Maltese children.

It was a pleasure to visit the Music room where we watched teacher and pupils singing their way through a number of lively Danish songs to the sound of music they themselves provided by playing different musical instruments – percussion and string included.

In Horsens there is a very sports-minded attitude to life in general with the local council helping community and schools in different sporting activities. This year the town’s professional basketball team reached the final of the national championship, losing by a very narrow margin, much to the disappointment of everybody – but especially of Lennart Jensen, Lundskolen’s Comenius Project coordinator, who happens to also be the chairman of Horsens’ basketball team.

During the lunch break many children would zip along on their roller skates or play football and other games in the playgrounds. We really enjoyed speaking to the children of the school and they responded very eagerly, although the younger ones found it difficult to communicate in English since the learning of English commences when they are about nine years old. There are plans to begin teaching this language a year earlier.

In the afternoons we took part in discussions which usually centred around Project targets achieved and plans for the third year of 4Ward Together in Education. We plan to have challenging Video Confer-encing Links with the four schools participating simultaneously. To do this, each partner school will require special video equipment.

The preliminary video conferencing trials will take place in the last week of September, when the scholastic year begins, so we are already making contacts to ensure that our school will not be left out when the big occasion arrives. During the link there will be a science lesson (for 10-11 year-olds) that will involve simple scientific experiments carried out simultaneously in the four separate classrooms of the four partner schools.

Another working session centred round IT provision at the Danish school, with Ms Bakgaard, the headteacher, providing each one of her guests with a copy of her school Information Technology policy, explaining the situation existing in her school in this regard and answering questions that were put to her. Computers in the Danish classrooms were not that numerous but they were definitely very modern. And they had computer labs too.

One day, after lunching at the school, the representatives were escorted to Lundskolen’s “twin school” situated in the same school grounds. This is a very modern special school for children with severe special needs. The school is called Lundagerskolen and the headteacher is Aksel Sabroe. After greeting us warmly this gentleman delivered an interesting talk to us all about Danish special needs schooling, the Danish welfare state and, most importantly, about his own beautiful and extremely well-equipped school.

In Denmark, schools catering for severe special needs are the responsibility of the wider county not of the municipality (or local council). At Lundagerskolen, which caters for special needs children aged from six to 17, there are at present 96 children, 37 teachers, 25 social workers, three therapists and eight student trainees or assistants.

This school must surely rank as one of the topmost special needs schools in Europe, possibly the whole world.

There was an abundance of all sorts of equipment, which impressed everybody, as did the school premises themselves which stressed the need for constant access to the beautiful external environment – the gardens, pathways and pools.

In this school, apart from the schooling proper, social assistance is also provided. In Denmark, parents insist on expertise for their children with severe disabilities rather than simply inclusion. We were taken round the school and it was immediately evident that this caters for children with really severe learning difficulties – 90 per cent of whom also suffer from additional hardships: hearing, visual impairment, behavioural problems, autism, severe cerebal palsy, mongolism...

Intervention in Denmark begins when a child is only months old and emphasis is placed on carrying out the necessary social work with the main aim being always to prepare the handicapped child for society and life rather that just for school education. Inclusion is understood to mean Inclusion in Society, not just Inclusion in School. In Denmark they have special needs nursery schools as well as special boarding schools for the really bad cases.

We visited the fully equipped motor therapy room where two therapists were working on a boy with severe motor handicaps. We also saw a number of special needs children going about in the school garden on specially constructed bikes and other equipment that helps them have fun while exercising to get round their mobility problems unaided.

Denmark runs the most expensive European school system with each child in the special needs school we were visiting costing county and municipality 240,000 Danish Kroner (about Lm14,200) per year while a child in a normal school costs about 180,000 Danish Kroner (about Lm10,600) annually.

There is at present public discussion centring around two issues: should special schools be (mostly) closed down and transfer to mainstream take place more often? And should the county system be wound down and responsibility transferred directly to the municipalities (local councils)?

Our Danish friends had even prepared a very interesting social programme for us all.

We visited Horsens city centre and especially the Community Town Hall where a guide showed us around the large, modern complex and explained how it functions, even showing us the brightly decorated little room where council marriages take place, usually officiated over by the vice mayor but sometimes by somebody else who, under the circumstances, has to wear the oversize official marriage robes normally used by the vice-mayor who is a veritable giant of a man!

The very friendly mayor of Horsens greeted us all and, in the huge and beautiful council meeting room itself, gave us a very interesting talk about his community, financial matters, the Danish welfare system (which must surely rank as one of the most advanced in the world) as well as the local council’s sponsorship and encouragement of different sporting activities. In the course of his talk, the mayor confided that he has plans to visit Malta one day.

The group also visited a big museum where we saw different rooms equipped with exhibits showing typical Danish workers’ home facilities at different times, starting from about the 16th century to comparatively recent days (about 20 years ago).

We also saw many exhibits connected with the Horsens-based telecommunications firm Arena which, between the early 1960s and 1979 (when the company was wound up) was world famous and produced television sets, radios and similar items.

A guide took us round the huge Horsens Industrial Museum where we saw all kinds of industrial machines – train engines, steam and diesel engines and compressors. Some of these immaculately kept machines were actually switched on for our benefit. We also saw an old lithograph printing press.

In the evenings we socialised in local restaurants, Danish pubs and coffee shops. This visit to Lundskolen was indeed a really worthwhile educational and social European Union experience! Our Danish colleagues – and the children of Lundskolen – reciprocated the hospitality which the other three partner schools (including us) had extended to them in the preceding visits which had taken place.

The only snag with this visit was that, for reasons beyond my control, I could not take two or three of my teachers to benefit with me from this extremely interesting visit – which was a real pity.

As a headteacher, I encourage my superiors to ensure that something positive be done as soon as possible to correct this glaring anomaly, especially now that Malta is well and truly in the European Union. Maltese schools will definitely benefit much more from EU educational programmes when this is done.

Mr Joseph E Grech is headteacher of the Guzeppina Deguara Primary School, Marsaxlokk