This contribution is based on a recently published book chapter entitled ‘Multi-grade Teaching in a Small Rural School in Northern Norway’ (Bjøru, AM., 2023, in Hirshberg, et al, J. (eds)). The research on which the chapter is based, investigates multi-grade teaching in a small rural school in Northern Norway. The aims of the research are to show what characterizes the teaching practices in a multi-grade school in a small rural community, and how these practices enable inclusion and adapted education. It presents a brief insight into parts of the Norwegian framework for education; the Education Act (1998) and the Core Curricula (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, n.d.), and the Subject Curricula (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2022), as well as theory about didactical tools that are useful in multi-grade school settings (Hyry-Beihammer, & Hascher, 2015a; 2015b). The data was collected during a visit to a small rural school. The field work lasted two full days and included observations of classroom sessions, participation at recess and informal talks with the teachers. Findings show that the three didactical tools student group formation/subject organizing, peer-learning and pupils’ personal working plans (Hyry-Beihammer & Hascher, 2015a; 2015b) are useful when conducting multi-grade teaching in a small school with few pupils. Alongside the subject orientation, the paper includes a discussion about the Norwegian Core curriculum’s (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, n.d.) focus on social learning and how this is an important fourth element when working towards a practice that is inclusive and adapted to the individual pupil.

Norway. In: Hirshberg, D.B., Beaton, M.C., Maxwell, G., Turunen, T., Peltokorpi, J. (eds) Education, Equity and Inclusion. Springer Polar Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97460-2_14 Hyry-Beihammer, E.K. & Hascher, T. (2015a). Multigrade Teaching in Primary Education as a Promising Pedagogy for Teacher Education in Austria and Finland. Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 22C, 89-113. http://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720150000022005 Hyry-Beihammer, E.K. & Hascher, T. (2015b). Multi-grade teaching practices in Austrian and Finnish primary schools. International journal of Educational Research, 2015:74, p. 104-113. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.07.002 The Education Act. (1998). Act relating to Primary and Secondary Education and Training. (LOV-1998-07-17-61). Lovdata. https://lovdata.no/dokument/NLE/lov/1998-07-17-61 The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. (n.d.). Core curriculum – values and principles for primary and secondary education. https://www.udir.no/lk20/overordnet-del/?lang=eng The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. (2022). Curricula in English. https://www.udir.no/in-english/curricula-in-english/