EDUCATION
From daycare to peuterspeelzaal to primary school, you can find the information you need about education in the Netherlands in this section.
Create Your Own Culture
February 19, 2013 | By Varya Sanina-Garmroud
Since I was quite young I dreamed about travelling places and learning about different cultures. Growing up in the Soviet Union we didn’t really have a specific “Russian” culture – we were brought up with the idea (at least in my family!) that the world [...]
Adoption by Language
February 15, 2013 | By Olga Mecking
This post is part of our “Adopt a Culture” series where bloggers tell us about customs they have adopted from a culture other than their own. When I think of adoption, I think of a process that is challenging, requiring you to embrace whatever it [...]
No time outs in Kenya
February 11, 2013 | By Kimberly Siegal
This post is part of our “Adopt a Culture” series where bloggers tell us about customs they have adopted from a culture other than their own. “Ashley if you throw sand one more time, it’s going to be a time out!” It was last Sunday [...]
Cross-Cultural Miscommunication
January 16, 2013 | By Lynn Morrison
Before meeting one another, my husband and I had each spent significant time in the other’s country. We were already fluent in each other’s languages and had a good idea about the other’s culture. We should have been able to communicate with one another without [...]
Bilingualism isn’t automatic
December 19, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
My husband and I are raising our children to speak three languages: English, Italian and Dutch. Like many parents, we were confident that our children would “just learn the languages as they grew up”. Boy were we in for a surprise! English and Dutch progressed [...]
Raising Multilingual Children
December 5, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
From an outsider’s perspective, being a parent to a multilingual child seems like sunshine and rainbows. The parent seems like a successful over-achiever, the child seems brilliant, and monolingual families can’t begin to imagine
Daycare in a non-native language
October 18, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
My husband is Italian and I am American. In 2009 we moved to the Netherlands with our 2-month-old daughter and none of us spoke any Dutch. Fast forward three years and we now have a very talkative three year old who regularly insists that she [...]
Hello World: It’s Kinderboekenweek!
October 8, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
Are you looking for some fun activities to do with your children this week? If so, why not visit a local bookstore or library? October 3 – 14, 2012 is officially “Kinderboekenweek” (Children’s book week) here in the Netherlands. And this year’s theme of “Hello [...]
Kinderboeken Week: “Australia Day” at a Dutch school
October 8, 2012 | By Renee Veldman-Tentori
This morning, I had a wonderful experience of spending some time with my daughter’s groep 2 class in Den Haag and talking to them about our home country, Australia. Sophia was born in Delft, but we left to live in Australia when she was 5 [...]
Education Week 2012 (Oct 1-7th)
September 24, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
October 1-7, 2012 is the official “Education Week” (week van de opvoeding) in the Netherlands. Parents and children are invited to attend workshops and events designed to foster communication and positive growth. I learned about the Week van de Opvoeding from Franciska Ederveen with the [...]
Biblionef – support a charity and get new books
September 24, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
I participated in the annual “Feel at Home in The Hague” fair this month and had the luck of meeting some great organizations and businesses. One of them is Stichting Biblionef Nederlands. Stichting Biblionef Nederlands is a non-profit organization based in The Hague that collects [...]
Playgrounds vs Workers at my local daycare
September 17, 2012 | By Aleksandra Tesanovic
Under ever increasing cost cutting pressure, my local daycare in Eindhoven has made one of their best workers redundant while rebuilding a playground. Since the reduction of childcare funding in January 2012, parents pay more money for daycare, and the number of children in daycare [...]
The full scoop on peuterspeelzaal
September 12, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
For many expat families, peuterspeelzaal (toddler preschool) is the first foray into the Dutch school system. I sat down with one of our Nomad Parents here in Delft to get the full scoop on peuterspeelzaal. I learned a lot and am excited to share it [...]
A Mindful School Choice
September 11, 2012 | By Marie Vijendran
Choosing a school for your child is perhaps one of the most challenging decisions we make as parents. In this country there are many choices available to us. Different schools specialise in different educational and religious approaches. At first having choices can seem wonderful, better [...]
Is there a wrong reason for picking a certain kind of school?
September 7, 2012 | By Olga Mecking
I have friends who send their children to international schools. They want their children to have education in their mother tongues (which is especially easy if the language in question is English, French or German). We went for the European school because it offered good [...]
How babies learn
August 14, 2012 | By Lynn Morrison
If you have ever wanted to know more about how babies and toddlers learn, the department of Developmental Psychology at the University of Amsterdam should be one of your first stops. Researchers there run regular studies to learn more about how babies use visual and [...]
The Daycare
July 13, 2012 | By Olga Mecking
Since I had to write my thesis, we sent Klara to a daycare that was recommended to us by a colleague of my husband’s. I felt very guilty about this since I wasn’t working, but we made an appointment to see the place. I went [...]
