Hjalli Model Education
Commissioned Work, Iceland and Scotland (2015–2017)
The Hjalli Model is an Icelandic educational philosophy and school system founded by Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir in 1989. It reimagines early education through equality, structure, and emotional awareness. The model emphasises equality, kindness, and self-development through original projects and careful attention to each child’s needs. Boys and girls are taught separately for much of the day, with cooperative mixed-gender activities designed to cultivate mutual respect and democratic values.
Classrooms are intentionally minimalist to reduce distraction, and both uniforms and toys are unisex. The approach encourages focus, kindness, and self-confidence from an early age, teaching children to develop empathy, self-regulation, and respect for others as everyday practice rather than abstract principle.
Margrét Pála – known to everyone as Magga Pála – is a pioneer pedagogue and philanthropist with degrees in education and management. She has received numerous awards for her contribution to equality and child development, including the Minister of Equal Rights Prize and the Knight’s Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon. Her work has been widely recognised for challenging ingrained gender norms and reshaping early education in Iceland through both vision and discipline.
I first met Magga while working on my book An Equal Difference in 2014, which explores gender equality in Iceland through portraits and essays. In 2015, I was commissioned to photograph the Hjalli schools in Iceland; the children, staff, and daily life within their classrooms.
When I was in classrooms full of girls leaping off ledges onto mats, the energy felt like what we typically call “boyish.” In the boys’ classrooms, where they danced or sewed, the atmosphere was calm and reflective – nothing like the restless energy often associated with boys. It was striking to witness how freedom and sensitivity could coexist when the expectations of gender were stripped away. The experience offered a rare insight into how values of equality and empathy can be lived, not just taught.
Two years later, I photographed Elmwood Nursery, the Hjalli Model school she and her team had just opened in Glasgow. It was the first of its kind outside Iceland; an experiment in adapting Magga’s vision to a new cultural context. Seeing the model take root abroad revealed both the universality and resilience of its core idea: that genuine equality begins in childhood, through practice and presence, not theory.
