Nørre Gymnasium
Encyclopedia
Nørre Gymnasium is one of Copenhagen
’s largest gymnasiums
offering both Danish instruction as well as the International Baccalaureate curriculum. It was founded in 1818 by Caroline Wroblewsky as a school for young girls, and since 1972 it has been located in Husum
, Denmark
.
s. There were 127 applications for school formation between 1815 and 1818.
In 1818, the year of her father’s death, Marie Albertine Caroline Wroblewsky sent in an application for an “institution of general education for a limited amount of young girls.” She was rejected as there were already too many schools in the Trinitatis parish. In her second application she requested to form her school in the suburb of Nørrebro
. The school commission queried the necessity for a girls’ school there, but the municipality's school directors approved Wroblewsky’s application on November 7, 1818, the day she turned 26.
. When Vilhelm August Borgen became Copenhagen's first school director in 1844, he standardized school levels and supplied information about the new requirements. In Wroblewsky’s school there were 7 male and 2 female teachers with 40 students divided into two classes. The subjects taught were religion
, Danish
, German
, French, history
, geography
, nature study
, arithmetic
, writing
, drawing
, singing
and needlework
. Physical education
was introduced in 1848. Wroblewsky retired in 1858 after 40 years at the school. She died on 1875, at age 82.
In Gartnergade, the school continued to expand. In 1904 room was created for the new subjects, physics
and chemistry
. When modern foreign language courses were introduced in Denmark in 1909 (as opposed to classical), the school's management decided to create a high school, completed in 1913. The science-mathematical course was an option at the school from 1915. Although overcrowded, the school stayed at the same location until 1971.
with Dorothea Krag as manageress. Both schools were housed in the same building until 1924, when the prep school moved to Thorvaldsen’s Girls’ School.
By the time Karen Kjær died, Nørre had developed into a high school (including a secondary school
) from its humble beginnings as a school for young girls. It had also been led by only three women in its 105-year history.
Knud Theodor Thejll, former head of K. Thejll’s Higher Girls’ School, became principal in 1923 and continued leading in Kjær's style. Thejll was concerned about the lack of space and other problems with the school’s layout and sought a solution in 1932. It was also during Thejll’s tenure that Nørre high school students started going on seven-day study trips, usually within Denmark, sometimes going into Sweden
. The first trip to Berlin
took place in 1970.
Thejll left the post in 1940 and died a year later.
by Nazi Germany
, the school came under threat of being converted into a hospital for Nazi troops. The lack of space continued to be a problem in 1940. In one case, a closet was being used as classroom: Dark, and with the corridor-facing wall made of glass, the space was only 5.30 x 3.85 meters (17 x 14 feet) and was shared by 9 students. The school was also aging; the physics and chemistry labs were at low standards, and there was no large assembly hall or bicycle storage area. Boys were not yet admitted as they were in many other public schools. Thus, under Hasselriis, Nørre Gymnasium lost its popularity and began to lose students. (The school finally turned co-ed at the end of the 1950’s.)
Ingeborg Hasselriis left the school in 1960 and was succeeded by Jørgen Andersen. Under his direction a student council
was established in 1965, which called for a partial smoking
permission and allowed students to stay in classrooms during breaks. In 1968 Nørre celebrated its 150th anniversary, and it was confirmed that a new school would be built in Mørkhøjvej.
In 1991 the IB programme
, the international educational curriculum, became available at the school. Nørre Gymnasium is only one of ten IB-accredited schools in Denmark.
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
’s largest gymnasiums
Gymnasium (Denmark)
The Danish Gymnasium offers a 3-year general academically-oriented upper secondary programme which builds on the 9th-10th form of the Folkeskole and leads to the upper secondary school exit examination...
offering both Danish instruction as well as the International Baccalaureate curriculum. It was founded in 1818 by Caroline Wroblewsky as a school for young girls, and since 1972 it has been located in Husum
Husum (Copenhagen)
Husum is a mainly residential district in the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark. Named after a medieval village which has been all but replaced by 1900s development, it is located to the far northwest in the municipality, near the border to Herlev. Together with nearby Brønshøj it forms the...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
School's founding
In 1814 a law was passed in Denmark requiring a seven-year compulsory education for all citizens. As public schools alone could not meet the demand, the new law led to a huge increase in the number of private schoolPrivate school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
s. There were 127 applications for school formation between 1815 and 1818.
In 1818, the year of her father’s death, Marie Albertine Caroline Wroblewsky sent in an application for an “institution of general education for a limited amount of young girls.” She was rejected as there were already too many schools in the Trinitatis parish. In her second application she requested to form her school in the suburb of Nørrebro
Nørrebro
Nørrebro is one of the 10 official districts of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is northwest of the city centre, beyond the location of the old Northern Gate , which, until dismantled in 1856, was near the current Nørreport station.-Geography:...
. The school commission queried the necessity for a girls’ school there, but the municipality's school directors approved Wroblewsky’s application on November 7, 1818, the day she turned 26.
Caroline Wroblewsky
The exact location of the school in its first year is not known, only that it was on the Nørrebrogade. It is possible to locate the school on different land titles from 1823. In 1824 the school was expanded to include older girls and Lieutenant Larsen was hired to teach FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. When Vilhelm August Borgen became Copenhagen's first school director in 1844, he standardized school levels and supplied information about the new requirements. In Wroblewsky’s school there were 7 male and 2 female teachers with 40 students divided into two classes. The subjects taught were religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, nature study
Nature study
The nature study movement was a popular education movement in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study attempted to reconcile scientific investigation with spiritual, personal experiences gained from interaction with the natural world...
, arithmetic
Arithmetic
Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...
, writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
, drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
, singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
and needlework
Needlework
Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...
. Physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
was introduced in 1848. Wroblewsky retired in 1858 after 40 years at the school. She died on 1875, at age 82.
Caroline Wroblewsky's stepdaughter
Caroline Wroblewsky's stepdaughter Emilie Christine Løbner took over the management of the school, herself a former student and teacher at the school. On September 11, 1858, Løbner took an exam to become a 3rd-degree institution manageress, giving her the right to expand the school and teach girls up to the age of 16. In 1873 there were a total of 15 teachers at the school. In 1892, after 34 years of service, Løbner retired.Karen Kjær
Karen Kjær, educated as both a school manageress and a teacher, became head of the school in 1892. She moved the school to Fælledvej street, splitting the students into single-year classes. The student population grew to 324 in 1904 (from 66 in 1882) reaching a total of 480 in 1918, the school's centennial year. Because of the continued increase in the student body, Karen Kjær moved the school to an independent building in the Gartnergade neighborhood in 1897.In Gartnergade, the school continued to expand. In 1904 room was created for the new subjects, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
. When modern foreign language courses were introduced in Denmark in 1909 (as opposed to classical), the school's management decided to create a high school, completed in 1913. The science-mathematical course was an option at the school from 1915. Although overcrowded, the school stayed at the same location until 1971.
Nørre Gymnasium through 1940
In 1919 the school changed its name to Nørre Gymnasium and, for financial reasons, was split into two parts. One part became a public high school with Karen Kjær as principal and the other a private preparatory schoolPreparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...
with Dorothea Krag as manageress. Both schools were housed in the same building until 1924, when the prep school moved to Thorvaldsen’s Girls’ School.
By the time Karen Kjær died, Nørre had developed into a high school (including a secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
) from its humble beginnings as a school for young girls. It had also been led by only three women in its 105-year history.
Knud Theodor Thejll, former head of K. Thejll’s Higher Girls’ School, became principal in 1923 and continued leading in Kjær's style. Thejll was concerned about the lack of space and other problems with the school’s layout and sought a solution in 1932. It was also during Thejll’s tenure that Nørre high school students started going on seven-day study trips, usually within Denmark, sometimes going into Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. The first trip to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
took place in 1970.
Thejll left the post in 1940 and died a year later.
Problems at the school
Ingeborg Hasselriis was the school’s principal from 1940 to 1960. During the Occupation of DenmarkOccupation of Denmark
Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark began with Operation Weserübung on 9 April 1940, and lasted until German forces withdrew at the end of World War II following their surrender to the Allies on 5 May 1945. Contrary to the situation in other countries under German occupation, most Danish...
by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, the school came under threat of being converted into a hospital for Nazi troops. The lack of space continued to be a problem in 1940. In one case, a closet was being used as classroom: Dark, and with the corridor-facing wall made of glass, the space was only 5.30 x 3.85 meters (17 x 14 feet) and was shared by 9 students. The school was also aging; the physics and chemistry labs were at low standards, and there was no large assembly hall or bicycle storage area. Boys were not yet admitted as they were in many other public schools. Thus, under Hasselriis, Nørre Gymnasium lost its popularity and began to lose students. (The school finally turned co-ed at the end of the 1950’s.)
Ingeborg Hasselriis left the school in 1960 and was succeeded by Jørgen Andersen. Under his direction a student council
Student council
Student council is a curricular or extra-curricular activity for students within elementary and secondary schools around the world. Present in most public and private K-12 school systems across the United States, Canada and Australia these bodies are alternatively entitled student council, student...
was established in 1965, which called for a partial smoking
Tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
permission and allowed students to stay in classrooms during breaks. In 1968 Nørre celebrated its 150th anniversary, and it was confirmed that a new school would be built in Mørkhøjvej.
The new school in Mørkhøjvej
The building for the new school opened officially on March 23, 1972, and classes in the new facility commenced on August 9 for the new school year.In 1991 the IB programme
IB Diploma Programme
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a two-year educational programme for students aged 16–19that provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education, and is recognised by universities worldwide. It was developed in the early to mid-1960s in Geneva by...
, the international educational curriculum, became available at the school. Nørre Gymnasium is only one of ten IB-accredited schools in Denmark.
List of the school’s principals
| Years | Principal | Years served |
|---|---|---|
| 1818–1858 | Caroline Wroblewsky | 40 years |
| 1858–1892 | Emilie Løbner | 34 years |
| 1892–1923 | Karen Kjær | 41 years |
| 1923–1940 | Knud Theodor Thejll | 27 years |
| 1940–1960 | Ingeborg Hasselriis | 20 years |
| 1960–1971 | Jørgen Andersen | 11 years |
| 1971 | Povl Aagaard (acting principal) | 1 year |
| 1971–1989 | Per Cortes | 18 years |
| 1989–1991 | Kirsten Jeppesen (acting principal) | 2 years |
| 1991–2001 | Ib Fischer Hansen | 10 years |
| 2001- | Jens Boe Nielsen | |