Finland · Helsinki
This is not International School of Helsinki and not The English School. It is SYK — a Finnish private sopimuskoulu in Etelä-Haaga from grade 3, with a national lukio and an IB line. The school’s own page says it does not charge pupil fees. The 2026 IB dates below are the admissions page.
Dit portret staat nog in het Engels. De andere talen komen school voor school.
Curriculum zoals de school het publiceert:Finnish National Core Curriculum (basic education) · Finnish lukio / ylioppilastutkinto · IB Diploma Programme
Onderwijstalen:Finnish, English (IB line)
Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu — SYK — is a Finnish private sopimuskoulu in Etelä-Haaga, not an international fee campus. Legal maintainer: Suomalaisen Yhteiskoulun Osakeyhtiö, Y-tunnus 0122164-9. Address the contact page prints: Isonnevantie 8, 00320 Helsinki. Official site syk.fi. Switchboard (09) 4774 180. syk@syk.fi. Basic education perusopetus@syk.fi. Lukio lukio@syk.fi. IB ibteam@syk.fi / ib@syk.fi.
Johtava rehtori: Sari Tiitta, sari.tiitta@syk.fi, +358 40 673 9359. Perusopetuksen rehtori: Jukka Niiranen, 041 533 5164. IB coordinator: Anni Grönroos, +358 40 482 5509. IB guidance: Anu Havula, +358 40 571 7586.
It is co-ed. It is a day school. The 2026 IB admissions page is blunt: SYK does not provide boarding, and will not admit an under-age student who wants to move to Finland alone.
It is not the International School of Helsinki in Ruoholahti. It is not The English School. It is not Deutsche Schule Helsinki. If a pack says “the Helsinki IB,” ask which legal name is on the place.
The useful questions are Finnish. Can this child sit a grade-3 language aptitude test in Finnish, or a lukio / IB yhteishaku on Opintopolku? Do you want the ylioppilastutkinto or the IB Diploma? And do you understand that the school’s own introduction says it does not charge pupil fees?
Founded 1886. The introduction page: a unified school with basic education grades 3–9, a national lukio, and an IB lukio. About 1,250 pupils. Many stay ten years. One hundred new third-graders a year, first foreign language French, German or Russian.
As a private contract school the same page says SYK sets its own pedagogical aims, chooses its teachers, writes its curriculum, decides materials and runs its own economy — and noudattaa valtakunnallisen opetussuunnitelman perusteita. It is still a Finnish national path, not a travelling international.
Johtava rehtori Sari Tiitta runs the whole house and the limited company. The company articles, the hallinto page quotes, say the company is not for distributing profit to shareholders.
It will not suit a family who need English from preschool, or a rolling international file in August. Walk ISH if that is the climate. They share a city and almost no Monday.
ISH is a fee-paying IB continuum from the early years. SYK starts at grade 3 and prints no pupil fee.
The English School is a bilingual Finnish-English private from preschool through the national matriculation. SYK’s basic-education door is Finnish, with a rare A-language from grade 3.
Ressun lukio is a City of Helsinki upper secondary with an IB line — a municipal door. SYK’s IB sits inside a private yhtenäiskoulu that already held the child from nine, or takes a new sixteen-year-old through Opintopolku. Same family of IB paper. Different house.
Isonnevantie, Etelä-Haaga, west Helsinki, not Ruoholahti and not the harbour postcard. Time that tram from the flat you will actually rent.
The introduction’s own texture: after-school hobbies, trips, expert lectures, theme days, celebrations. We will not invent a bus. Ask.
This is a Finnish application year, not OpenApply.
Grade 3, as the 2026 timetable on the basic-education page prints it — those dates are already for 2027 entry. Second-graders who will take French, German or Russian as A-language. The rehtori selects on a Finnish-language aptitude test. Children who already speak that A-language from a foreign-language school are not taken into that group. Register online 4–29 January 2027. Test: Saturday 6 February 2027, 10:00–12:00. Results 3 March 2027. Confirm the place by 10 March 2027 to oppilasvalinnat@syk.fi. Parent evening: 20 January 2027, 18:00.
Grades 4–9: only if a seat frees. Apply 22 March – 29 April 2027. Grade 7 is not in the ordinary municipal transfer card. Sixth-graders who want SYK apply on that same electronic link.
National lukio yhteishaku printed on the same page: 16 February – 16 March 2027, 15:00.
IB preparatory year / IB1, 2026, as syk.fi/admission prints it:
The admissions page: every student is expected to study at least two languages, usually including a mother tongue. English-only is not enough. Finnish or Swedish is not required on entry; the school encourages Finnish. Preparatory-year students are usually 15–16.
Open house 2026: 20 January 14:00 and 3 February 18:30.
We will not invent a waitlist.
The introduction page’s own sentence: SYK ei peri oppilasmaksuja. It does not charge pupil fees.
That is the tuition fact. Lunch, trips, materials and after-school hobbies are not priced on that page. Ask. We will not invent them.
A separate musiikkiopisto is not the school fee. From 1 August 2026 that page prints semester fees of €453 / €680 / €906 for 30 / 45 / 60 minutes, twice a year, and €155 a year for music theory only. Do not add those euros to a child who is not in the music school.
Invoices for suppliers use the company IBAN FI08 1299 3000 0732 72. That is not a tuition account for families.
The ylioppilastutkinto on the national lukio line. The introduction says those results sit at the top of the country each year. Treat that as the school’s own sentence, not a rank we calculated.
The IB Diploma on the IB line. The same introduction says IB results are “among the world’s best.” We will not invent a points average the page does not print. Ask which sitting they want you to read.
A child cannot be only-English and leave with either paper as if SYK were ISH.
Ask whether this child is a grade-3 language applicant, a rare mid-basic-education seat, a national lukio file, or an IB preparatory / IB1 file — those are four different Tuesdays. Ask how much Finnish a shy fifteen-year-old will really have by the second spring. Ask what lunch costs, because tuition is not the whole week. Ask whether the IB line still has a seat after 17 March. Ask what happens if the posting ends in November: this is a Finnish school year, not a rolling international.
We are not ranking SYK against ISH or Ressu. We are not guessing a waitlist.
Read the live introduction and the 2026 IB admissions page before you resign a flat. This is a map. The school still has to be the right Tuesday.
Officiële pagina’s en documenten die we lazen. Als een bedrag telt voor budget of aanmelding, open de link en check of die nog klopt.
Vriendelijke oriëntatie, geen aanmelding. Data, tarieven en programma’s schuiven. Check alles bij de school.
Helsinki is not one international campus. It is a Finnish city where peruskoulu is the default, plus six official doors posting families name. Ask which paper the child will hold at eighteen.
15 minDe letters op het diploma doen ertoe. Ze zijn niet het hele kind. Hier hoe je ze uit elkaar houdt zonder hoofdpijn, en zonder te doen alsof elke deur openblijft.
16 minJe hebt geen perfect algoritme nodig. Wel een paar ware dingen over je kind, een saai lijstje op de koelkast, en de moed om een mooie campus te negeren die niet past.
15 minHet schoolgeld is het getal op de homepage. De pdf is het getal dat in maart binnenkomt. Hier lees je hoe je de tweede leest, zonder een euro, een kroon of een deadline te verzinnen.