School trip to school

Today for a school project I went to an elementary school. We began by observing a 4th grade classroom. Then afterwards interviewed the teacher. Here are some of my observations.
I noticed right away that most of the students were not wearing shoes. I can only assume that their shoes were in the coat room with all their other winter clothes. Swedes generally take there shoes inside their houses but I have never taken my shoes of at school. Some of the students had slippers to wear indoors. In the teachers lounge they had shelves for the teachers to leave their shoes.
Students were allowed to eat during class when they were writing or listening. Parents are only allowed to pack healthy snacks for their kids. No chips, candy or soda.
The first part of the class surprised me a lot. The teacher started by calling on all the students who had be absent to talk about why they were gone. I thought that was kind of invasive. Then she called on other students who had experienced family problems or had other medical problems over the weekend. The class discussed these things together. The teacher said that she talks to most of the parents at least once a week. I was very surprised by the amount of communication between everyone.
The students study all the basic subjects with an addition of English. The main teacher teaches all the subjects except for music and math.
The students are also learning how to play chess. They are going to a competition to play chess with other students in Stockholm in March.
When we asked the teacher what the hardest part of teaching was she immediately said that it was personalizing the lesson plans for each of her 25 students. She also added that she likes having the time to really grow with the students. In Sweden students have the same teacher throughout elementary school.