Right to study at the Junior Academy and study planning
As a student at the Junior Academy, a personal study plan (NOPS) will be created for you. Your studies will follow this plan. Progressing in your studies also affects your right to study.
How to ensure your right to study at the Junior Academy
Your right to study at the Junior Academy is valid for one academic year at a time. How you succeed in your studies will affect whether your right to study will be extended or not. We will continuously monitor your progress. You do not need to make a separate application for an extension to your right to study. You can check the Junior Academy’s qualification requirements in the Junior Academy’s Admissions Guide.
Once you have been accepted into the Junior Academy, you must submit a certificate proving that you are a student in comprehensive education or a secondary education institution every year. If you do not submit a certificate of student status, you will lose your right to study at the Junior Academy. You will be registered as an attending student for the incoming academic year when you submit your certificate of student status.
As a student of the Junior Academy, you cannot register as a non-attending student. Your right to study ends at the end of the academic year during which you stop studying in comprehensive education or in secondary education – however, at the latest at the end of the spring term in the year during which the student turns 20. A student’s right to study may also end if they neglect their studies: the student does not follow information provided on the Junior Academy and fails to take care of the student’s obligations (cf. drawing up a personal study plan, taking part in the spring discussion), is absent from lessons without notification or discontinues studies included in their personal study plan without a good reason. The decision to terminate the right to study is made by the dean.
How to plan your studies
When you begin your studies, you will be informed of the identity of your instrument teacher. If you continue your studies at the Junior Academy, you can view the teaching granted to you in the Peppi system around the turn of August and September.
Discuss the personal instruction offered to your directly with your teacher. You can be in touch with the teacher via their Uniarts e-mail. If you wish, you may ask for the telephone number of your teacher from: siba.nuorisokoulutus@uniarts.fi.
The Junior Academy’s study plan
Your studies will progress in accordance with the Junior Academy’s curriculum and your personal study plan (NOPS). Your study plan includes the teaching of the major subject or main instrument, studies in music perception skills, possible studies in other subjects, such as a minor subject or a second instrument, period teaching and the public performances that will be assessed included in the studies. When preparing your NOPS, the goals related to basic or secondary education will also be taken into consideration.
We will assess the achievement of your study plan and the continuation of your studies every spring in a NOPS discussion together with the head of department and the coordinator of the Junior Academy. If you want to change your major subject at some point during your studies, you may only do so by attending the Junior Academy’s entrance examination. As a rule, you can only change your major subject once during your studies.
You may also be granted other Sibelius Academy teaching, such as second instrument or minor subject studies.
Studies in structural awareness of music
As part of your studies, you will also take part in the teaching of structural awareness of music.
Students of classical music
If you have not yet completed courses on structural awareness of music at the basic level, you should study them at a music school in your home region.
You may take part in instruction organised by the Sibelius Academy starting from courses in Aural Skills / Junior Academy and Applied and Analytical skills / Junior Academy (equivalent to the advanced level at music schools, although these are more goal-oriented than typical music school courses are). Alternatively, it is possible to complete courses at a music school in your home region, but owing to differences in curricula, it is best to agree on such an arrangement with teachers of structural awareness of music at the Sibelius Academy.
In addition to taking part in instrument lessons and possible chamber music lessons and instruction on ensemble playing, make sure that you also participate in instruction on structural awareness of music! The goal is to complete at least the courses in aural skills and applied analytical skills. After these it will be possible to move on to university-level courses on structural awareness of music.
Students of folk music and jazz
Students of folk music and jazz at the Junior Academy will complete theory and composition studies in connection with weekend periods organised at Kallio-Kuninkala.