Hello,
Thanks for all the fantastic contributions to this forum, often so useful to me. We live in the Netherlands since 2018 and my child was born here in 2020. We are now deciding between international and Dutch school.
My son attends an international day care. The main language is English with some very occasional Dutch. We, as parents, have very limited Dutch skills and my child even less. He can understand some words and say certain things but his English language skills are far superior. We certainly don't think he has enough Dutch to enter a Dutch school in less than a year.
I am interested if others have any past experience in this regard. Our current plan is to enter our child in an international school when he is 5. We are certainly open to him moving to a Dutch school after a few years if our long term plans are to reside in NL, once his Dutch language skills are higher and his academic confidence established. Ideally he would attend one of the International schools which are partially subsidised and therefore have reduced fees. I understand there are certain admission requirements for this and would be interested if others have experience of how to provide evidence you meet these requirements.
None of us have Dutch nationality and our future is not entirely certain - we both work freelance on a project/ contract basis remotely, usually with international clients. We could remain in the Netherlands (I am British and we moved here before Brexit) but we don't have permanent employment here. Interested in others with any similar experience giving insight on the admission process for those particular International Schools.
Much appreciated,
