Nørre Gymnasium
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Nørre Gymnasium, which since 1972 has been located in Husum, Denmark, was founded in 1818 by Caroline Wroblewsky as a school for young girls, but it has by this day become one of Copenhagen’s largest gymnasiums and offers both Danish as well as international educations.
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[edit] Early school history
[edit] The struggle of Caroline Wroblewsky for the foundation of the school
Marie Albertine Caroline Wroblewsky was one of the three children of Daniel Wroblewsky that survived. When he died in 1818 the unmarried 25-year-old Caroline Wroblewsky was on her own and had to provide herself by teaching. A law about a 7-year compulsory education was adopted in 1814 in Denmark. This led to a huge market for private schools, since public schools were not sufficiently developed. These schools were often created by women, and Caroline Wroblewsky wished to start her own “Institution of general education for a limited amount of young girls”. It was not easy due to the many applicants. There were 127 applications for school formation between 1815 and 1818. In 1818, the same year as her father’s death, Caroline Wroblewsky sent an application praising herself and with recommendations from other people, as well as an explanation of her economic situation. She was rejected, because there were too many schools in the parish of Trinitatis. As she had a difficulty finding a place to live in other parishes she asked in her second application to form the school in the suburb Nørrebro. The school commission doubted there was enough demand for a girls’ school in Nørrebro, but the school direction of the municipality approved Caroline Wroblewsky’s application November the 7th 1818, the day she turned 26.
[edit] The three manageresses
[edit] Caroline Wroblewsky
It is not exactly known where the school was located the first year, but that it is on the present road Nørrebrogade is definite. From 1823 it is possible to localize the school on different title numbers. In 1824 Caroline Wroblewsky was allowed to extend the school to include elder girls and hire Lieutenant Larsen to teach French. She adopted the title school manageress. In 1844 V.A. Borgen became the first school director in Copenhagen. He standardized the level in all schools and supplied information about them. In Wroblewsky’s school there were 7 male and 2 female teachers and 40 students divided into two classes. The subjects taught were religion, Danish, German, French, history, geography, nature study, arithmetic, writing, drawing, singing and needlework. In 1848 physical education was introduced. After 40 years Caroline Wroblewsky retired in 1858. She died on 1875, age 82.
[edit] Emilie Christine Løbner
After Caroline Wroblewsky her stepdaughter took over the school management, herself being a former student and teacher at the school. She chose to take an exam to become institution manageress of 3rd degree, which she became September the 11th 1858. This gave her the right to extend the school and teach girls until the age of 16. In 1873 there were 9 male and 6 female teachers at the school and the amount of students was at its highest in the 1880’s with about 100. It began to fall and in 1892, after 34 years of service, Løbner went off the post. She staid in contact with the school, and when she died in 1896 it was announced at a morning assembly.
[edit] Karen Kjær
Karen Kjær applied to take over the school after E. Løbner. She was highly educated, both as school manageress and teacher, and she had a higher academic education that Løbner. It was approved immediately. By the school take over in 1892 K. Kjær presented her future plans: she moved the school to Fælledvej and split the students into single-year classes. The student number grew from 66 in 1982 to 324 in 1904 and reached 480 students in the anniversary year 1918. It was because of this rise Karen Kjær decided to move the school to an independent building in Gartnergade. That took place in 1897.
In Gartnergade a lot of expansions took place: in 1904 to be able to room the new subjects physics and chemistry and in 1913 to house the high school. Although there was a great lack of space, the school staid in the same place until 1971.
When the high school course of new languages (as opposed to classical) was introduced in Denmark, the school management chose to create a high school in 1909. The science-mathematical course could be chosen from 1915 in Karen Kjær’s school.
[edit] The next 100 years
[edit] Nørre Gymnasium
In 1919 the school changed its name to Nørre Gymnasium and the same year it was split due to the large economic expenses that private school experienced. One part was the public high school with Karen Kjær as principal and the other was a private preparation school with Dorothea Krag as manageress and was in the same building as the high school until 1924, when it moved to Thorvaldsen’s Girls’ School.
When Karen Kjær died the school had been lead by three women for 105 years and turned into a high school (including secondary school) from a school for young girls.
Knud Theodor Thejll who already had an experience as the head of K. Thejll’s Higher Girls’ School became the new principal. He had known Karen Kjær and continued in the same style. Thejll also regret the lack of room and other problems in the school’s building and encouraged to look for a solution in 1932.
It was with Thejll as well that the high school students started going on study trips, which were of the length of 7 days. They were usually inside the borders of the country, but went sometimes to Sweden. Only in 1970 the first trip to Berlin took place. Thejll went off the post in 1940 and died but a year later.
[edit] Problems at the school
Ingeborg Hasselriis became the school’s next principal and tightened the rules as she pleased. She had a lot of problems when being principle, as the occupation for example, where the school was in danger of being turned into a hospital for German troops. In 1940 the lack of space became an even greater problem. A complaint was referring to a wardrobe, which was used as classroom. It was just 5.30 x 3.85 m and used by 9 students. It was dark and the wall facing the corridor was made of glass. The school was getting old and too small, there was no large assembly hall nor a basement for bicycles, the physics and chemistry labs had a too bad standard and Nørre Gymnasium became a school students would not voluntarily apply for. It also began to lose students, who chose to move because there were no boys in Nørre Gymnasium as in many other public schools. Of that reason the school became available for both boys and girls in the end of the 1950’s. Ingeborg Hasselriis stopped in 1968 after 20 years as principal and was succeeded by Jørgen Andersen. In his period as principal the student council was established in 1965, which was the reason for a partial smoking permission and a permission to stay in the classrooms in the breaks. In 1968 the 150th anniversary was celebrated, where it was confirmed that a new school would be build on Mørkhøjvej (the debate had been going on for years).
[edit] The new school
After many years, since the beginning of the lack of space in Gartnergade I 1913, the new school building was finished in 1972 and opened officially the 23rd of March and later the 9th of August for a new school year.
[edit] International Baccalaureate
In 1991 the IB-programme became an available choice at Nørre Gymnasium, an international education, which gives foreigners the possibility to study in Denmark. There are 10 institutions of such kind in Denmark.
[edit] A list of the school’s principles/managers
- Caroline Wroblewsky, 40 years (1818-1858)
- Emilie Løbner, 34 years (1858-1892)
- Karen Kjær, 41 years, (1892-1923)
- Knud Theodor Thejll, 27 years (1923-1940)
- Ingeborg Hasselriis, 20 years (1940-1960)
- Jørgen Andersen, 11 years (1960-1971)
- Povl Aagaard (acting principal)
- Per Cortes, 18 years (1971-1989)
- Kirsten Jeppesen (acting principal)
- Ib Fischer Hansen, 10 years (1991-2001)
- Jens Boe Nielsen (2001- )
