What to expect

ArcticTerns offers educational experiences, social connections, and personal growth through cultural immersion. We do this while embracing common values, appreciation and togetherness.

What does this mean? What are we and what are we not? What do we offer, what can you expect from us and what should you not expect?

1. What we are is a Worldschool family

ArcticTerns has been built by a Worldschooling family for other Worldschooling families. We are operating ArcticTerns as a non-profit and have put an incredible amount of time, effort and all our love into creating the program. Constantly juggling between our vision and the needs of all the participants. To keep this sustainable, the program needs to work for us as well. We as a family are participants in the program and aim to build friendships for life while enjoying all the fun activities the program has to offer.
This also applies to the rest of the team who are exchanging their time and effort to be able to participate in the program and activities. As none of the team members are being paid for their contributions, appreciation is appropriate. All the team members like to have a good time while enjoying good company and nice activities. When we say we want all the participants of the program to be able to have an amazing time, we literally mean everybody.

2. What we create is a community

ArcticTerns was created to connect Worldschooling families. As a Worldschooling family we know how important it is to find a community during our travels. To make community work, an investment from every participant is needed. We all give our best to the community and we see where we can add. We all put in our best effort to make it work for every person in the community, because we appreciate being part of the program and the community and we appreciate the presence of other participants. We do it together, and together we create a vibe that none of us will ever forget.

3. We are not a school nor daycare.

ArcticTerns organises educational Worldschool gatherings, but we are not a school. We do not teach any curriculum. What we offer are fun, educational, extracurricular activities. We do not use professional teachers. Instead we work with a team of (mostly young) excited volunteers. We do not offer a kids program, we offer a family program. This does include kids activities under the accompaniment of our team members, but we are not responsible for your children nor their behaviour. We expect parents to make their own judgement of which activities their children can attend in a safe and responsible way and if needed join the child to the activity. Parents should remain available and responsible for their children at all times.

4. We are not a travel agency.

ArcticTerns organises touristic activities for Worldschooling families, but we are not a travel agency. We do not charge tourist prices and always try to keep the prices affordable. Your expectations should be set accordingly. Our team members will accompany you to the activities and organise the logistics, but they are not your tour guides. We do not offer an organised vacation. We are exploring the world together.

5. We are not a service provider.

ArcticTerns does everything we can to make your participation as pleasant as possible, but we are not here to serve nor please you. We organise a program and put our full effort into it. We try to communicate as clearly as possible in what we offer. We strive to give all the participants all the ingredients to have an amazing time. But we can not make you enjoy the program. It is fully your responsibility to make it fun for yourself and your family. We expect everybody to help make it fun for all participants of the program. We do this together. 

5. We are open to feedback and creating solutions together 

We want to create an open environment, hear your constructive feedback and work together on how we can improve. We want to hear how we can make things better, from mutual respect and with a no as a possibility. Mere complaints, criticism and gossip, without meaningful solutions, are not helpful nor welcome.