After much deliberation we ended up not sending the kids to the Montessori school about 10 minutes drive away but to a school which is literally 200m from home. The kids love it!
It is a public school, which all schools mostly are in the Netherlands, they each choose which stream they follow. In our village of about 6000 we have three primary schools. All within 2 minutes walk from our place. There is a catholic school, where Simone's boys go, a Christian School and the school where Kirsten and Finn which follows the Dalton style. Which no is not a religion but rather a style of teaching and is very similar to Montessori.
Their school has about 120 students from pre-prep to grade 7, with about 15 in Finn's class and 19 in Kirsten's. Like most European schools the size of the school fits into about 1/4 of the size of Railway Estate school and the playarea is paved with a sandpit and couple of monkey bar things.
The kids start school at 8.45am and go till 11.45am, then are home for lunch and back in school at 1.15pm til 3.15pm. On Wednesdays all classes finish at 12pm..........we then head off to ski lessons.
It's nice having the kids home for lunch but means you can't travel far from home and if you do work then they have some volunteers that look after the kids for a small fee during the lunch hour.
One thing which really tops the "assemblies" we are used to and love so much......not! Is that they have every three or so weeks on a Friday afternoon like a recap session. All the classes including the littlies gather together. Each class then puts on a short presentation.......like Finn's class was learning about their bodies so they sang a song. The grade 7's ran the show, taking off funny TV ads and little skits and they also shared any important information.........like money raised or events etc or even when someone's cat has kittens! Kirsten's class has done skits from playing mirrors, music and emotions and singing. I think it's a fantastic idea and makes it fun for the school to come together and share important news. I wish we had something like this back home!
It was good that the kids started school at the beginning of the school year here in August. I think that made the world of difference with making new friends. Both Kirsten and Finn have regular playdates and seem to have fitted in really well. It's been great for their language skills and Kirsten proudly told us she read a story out aloud for her class the other day. I know the kids (& me) will really miss our school here, but at least the kids will have had a wonderful experience!
