American mom looking for advice on schools and neighborhoods in Oslo.....

[motherofthree]

Hi .. I am an American currently living in Sogndal with my Norsk husband and three small children. We are considering a move to Oslo, but have no idea about the quality of the public schools/ barnehagens .. We would like to be somewhat central so we can walk to schools, parks, and markets and not have to live our old american lifestyle living in the car!

Any advice?

[Anonym bruker]

Schools in Oslo are ranked top in Norway, there are many good public school here. You also have Oslo International Shcool, in Bærum, but it is very expensive. Mostly used by diplomat children and children paid for by daddy's employer.

 

When choosing a school in Oslo, you should somewhat be aware that some of the schools in the Eastern part of the city are not great in the way that some of them have up 98% immigrants, which can make it hard for the Norwegian children to learn Norwegian and actually also hard for the immigrants as they are from a lot of different countries.

 

We live in Central Oslo and love it here. We have parks, markets, movie theatre, botiques and shops, supermarkets, public pool, ice rink and public tennis courts and everything we need in walking distance. Lots of activities for children here and we hardly ever use the car, not even when grocery shopping.

 

Please let me know if I can help you out with more information.

[motherofthree]

thank you so much for your response. you advice is incredibly helpful. could you give me specific information on the neighborhood you live in, and/or school or barnehagen names with good reputations?

[Anonym bruker]

I'm not the anonym person over here, but i'll give some input too:) My husband is american:)

 

From what that person describes, i'd sa she lives in the frogner/majorstuen area, see http://www.bydel-frogner.oslo.kommune.no/ Probably near frognerparken. I've lived there myself, but we moved to another part of the city. The area is very good, you can walk to anything! And everything is there! I miss the convenience, but we lived very close to the main road there and the air could be bad.

 

Unfortunately, it is very hard to get into barnehage in frogner. But i've heard that child planet has a good reputation, www.childplanet.no. The city of oslo has about 2500 children waiting to get into barnehage, but it's worse on the westside.

 

We live in ullern, see http://www.bydel-ullern.oslo.kommune.no/ When i had maternity leave i used to walk to frognerparken, it took about 40 minutes, but ullern has good connections with tram, subway and buses. The air is very good here:) and you can travel easily into the city.

 

Other areas i would consider (access through www.oslo.kommune.no):

Vestre aker

Nordre aker

nordstrand

st.hanshaugen (has a school with good reputation: st. sunniva it's catholic but you don't have to be catholic to go there, link http://www.stsunniva.zm.no/index.php)

 

unless you live in frogner (and work there), you are going to have to do some public transportation due to distances and traffic lines in the city.

 

Please don't hesitate to ask any other question, people are very friendly on this english forum:))

 

 

[Anonym bruker]

hey, i thought i would give you my input also on oslo:)

i assume you want a house since you have 3 children? hehe

anyways, i see that Frogner is mentioned by others here. its a nice and central area, but i would like to lobby for "the other side of town"

Nordstrand/Bekkelaget/Ekeberg is a great area to live in. (i grew up there)

the bus/tram/subway takes you to the centre of oslo quickly. theres a lot of nature/outdoors possibilities there, Ekebergsletta and Østensjøvannet amongst others. A great area to spend time outdoors with your children.

I live in the suburb of Lambertseter, its more of a cheaper place to live next to Nordstrand. I LOVE it here:)

 

but its hard to give advice when i dont know what kind of money youre willing to spend on a place to live. I would recommend you to go on www.finn.no and look at the realestate there!

 

[Anonym bruker]

Hello.

 

I live in Oslo as well and i love it here! I must agree with the others above, the Frogner area is a real nice area in central Oslo. Though, it all depends on your economy. If you want a house there, you'll have fork out A LOT of money as it is very expensive there, regardless the area is so great and you get what you pay for! Frogner is also very child-friendly and as far as I'm concerned the schools seems good. You have Bygdøy skole which is a pure primary school - my circle of acquaintances are very pleased with Bydøy skole. Other schools to be found in in bydel Frogner is Majorstuen skole (both primary and lower secondary school - good reputation as well... Ruseløkka skole (both primary and lower secondary - also with a good reputation...) and Uranienborg skole (which is also a primary and lower secondary school...) I don't have any knowledge about this school, but I would believe it to be good as well. Other than that it is not too far to private schools - you have the montessori school, the french school and a catholic school. The catholic school (St Sunniva) is reputable for good staff and tuition.

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

[Anonym bruker]

I live central - used to live close to Majorstua - now live on the eastside - Kampen/Vålerenga area - and I think it is great. Personally I like it much more this side of town than the west side of town, and I feel more comfortable bringing up a family here. We have kindergarden close, school will be close - there are - easy access to parks etc. Lovely neighbours, great local history and community feeling - and lovely wooden houses. You have to do your own research of course to see what you like, but I would recommend to look into parts both east and west to make up your own opinion.