Passionate Parenting

A Dutch-English primary school in The Hague

A group of parents in The Hague with young children and an international background is exploring the possibility of setting up a Dutch-English primary school. We aim at high quality education with an international orientation and modern methods, taught by native speakers in a tailor-made balance of both English and Dutch.

Why a Dutch-English school?

Many families want bilingual education for their children.

• Some come from abroad and want their children to integrate in Dutch society without loosing their knowledge of the English language.
• Others have plans to emigrate in the future and want to prepare their children properly without isolating them from Dutch language and society. All of them find it important to prepare them at an early age for an internationalising world. A bilingual school offers that possibility.

The Hague is far behind the rest of Europe in the area of bilingual education. This is despite the large amount of international organisations, its expat community and the ambition to be an ‘international capital of peace and justice’ . Bilingual schools do not exist here. International schools offer some hours of Dutch, but insufficient to integrate in Dutch society. At the same time some Dutch primary schools offer 1 or 2 hours of English lessons per week, not enough to reach or maintain a proper level in that language.

The Dutch education law (article 9) obliges Dutch primary schools to teach in Dutch, but it also offers a broad margin for education in other languages. More specifically national politics more and more explicitly recognizes the necessity of education in English at an early age, the so-called ‘vroegtijdig vreemdetalenonderwijs’ (early foreign language education) VVTO. Hundreds of primary schools in the Netherlands already offer English lessons to young children. In particular the city of The Hague explicitly made internationalisation of education a priority as formulated in the Hague Educational Agenda HEA.

How are we going to do it?

The initiative is still in the exploration phase. To know the possibilities and define a strategy contacts have been made with knowledge centres in the area of VVTO. One of them is Early Bird, a consultancy bureau in Rotterdam with a huge experience with bilingual education methods for young children and with setting up English-Dutch education programs. Another is the European Platform, which promotes internationalisation of Dutch education. Both have reacted enthusiastically.

In the short term we will look for an existing administration of a school with a good reputation, that backs this initiative, that appreciates commitment of the parents and a high level of education and that is not opposed to a possible future ‘own contribution’ of the parents. This board will have to see if the ‘new stream’ will either be implemented in an existing building, or be based in a new accommodation.

As soon as cooperation with a school administration is established, we will approach the city administration of The Hague for permits, financing and accommodation. We hope the international ambitions of The Hague create possibilities. The administration has just created an ‘International Zone’– between Statenkwartier and Benoordenhout – to underline its status as the international capital of Justice and Peace. This concept of the International Zone also includes a focus on international education. A bilingual school could perfectly be a part of this. The manager of the International Zone, Casper van de Feltz, reacted enthusiastically and expressed his willingness to think along in the future as soon as the accommodation question comes in sight.

What has to be done next?

Our provisional planning is as follows:

March             - orientation, gathering information and formulate the initiative
- mobilising parents and establishing demand

April                - first meeting of parents

- approaching schools

May-June       - agreements with a school administration

July-July 2011- accommodation, teachers, methods, inscription

The aim is to start in September 2011. We call on everybody who is interested in this initiative to contact us, in the first place families with children between 3 and 5 years old, but younger and older children are welcome too. The bigger the group, the bigger the possibility that this will be a success. In April we want to arrange a meeting in order to coordinate wishes and ideas.

It is important to let us know if you think this is a good idea. We need to assess the interest level before we move forward.

The coordination is in the hands of Edwin Koopman and Sonia Robla.

You can reach us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and 06- 2938 5416.