Akureyri, is the largest town in the North of Iceland with total of 18 000 inhabitants. The population has been relatively homogenous but this has changed rapidly the last decade. In January 2016 Akureyri welcomed four families from Syria who had been living in refugee camps in Libanon for some time. The four families include 13 children of school or kindergarten age and after an adaptation period of two weeks they went to their neighbourhood school or kindergarten. The current legislation on schools in Iceland emphasizes the principle of equality. The role of schools is that they “shall […] seek to organize their work in a way that corresponds as fully as possible with the circumstances and needs of pupils, and to promote the all-round development, well-being and education of each individual” (Compulsory School Act No. 91/2008). This emphasis is reiterated in the National curriculum guidelines for each school level (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c). Icelandic education policy is based on the ideology of inclusive education. However, despite attempts to recognize differences within the Icelandic school system, the multicultural aspects of the educational system have largely been ignored (Jóhannesson, 2006). Research shows that students with immigrant backgrounds succeed less well in Icelandic schools than their classmates with Icelandic backgrounds (Ágústsdóttir, 2008; Bjarnason, 2011; Halldórsson et al., 2013). Previous research indicates as well, that teachers in primary schools lack adequate knowledge and resources to meet the needs of students with immigrant background (Daníelsdóttir, Jónsson and Sigurðardóttir, 2010; Karvelsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir, 2010). This research project aims to explore the experience of the schools in Akureyri that accommodated the refugee students from Syria from the perspectives of the teachers and the school services in the municipality through semi-structured individual and group interviews. The findings reveal how previous experience with students with immigrant background helped teachers to organize students learning and the importance of assigning the intendance of those students to a certain teacher at the beginning. Issues related to cultural differences on school systems, such as behavior, relationship between student and teachers and between students, study requirements and more were a challenge in some cases. The findings identified factors that schools needs to improve but as well issues that affects positively the education of all students.

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