About IES

About IES

Internationella Engelska Skolan is one of the largest operators within the Swedish compulsory school system. We have approximately 30,000 students in 46 compulsory schools, from Trelleborg in the south to Skellefteå in the north. We are a bilingual school that follows the Swedish national curriculum and believes that learning starts with a safe and calm environment.

IES was founded in 1993, and has a long experience as a high-quality school organisation. Barbara Bergstrom, the founder who was herself a teacher, saw the need of an alternative to existing schools at the time. She believed in the need of discipline, to create a safe and orderly environment, in which teachers can teach and students learn. She emphasised the importance of raising high expectations for everyone, also the most gifted learners. And she believed that young Swedes needed to fully command both the Swedish language and English, which had become the key to the world. The best way to achieve this is via “language immersion”, with many teachers recruited from English speaking countries.