slktck

Hi there,
My husband is looking at a job in the netherlands, can anyone tell me if there are english speaking classes in the state schools? (i was told this once by someone I met who lived there!)
if not, are there many bilingual or international schools that are not really expensive? (we have 4 kids!)
any info would be much appreciated

Casa Santo Estevo

The language in The Netherlands is Dutch so it is normal to have classes in Dutch. The only lessons in English are English lessons.
If you want all the lessons in English then it is best to place your children in an international school.
Having said that there are some, read very few, schools for 11 to 17 year olds which give about half the lessons in English. But there is still that element of lessons in Dutch.

davesmithsrm

We wondered the same thing for our daughter when we moved to Flanders, sorry, i mean Belgium.. we were worried about our daughter (6 years old) and how she would cope.

6 months later, she is near fluent in dutch with her school friends and has the confidence to order things in a bistro.

Obviously it depends on the ages of the children in judging about schooling, but for me, i would do the same again tommorow.

slktck

good to hear your daughter has settled in well, we lived in germany for 2 years and my 3 year old had a really hard time settling at kindergarten, so i'm a bit wary about plunging them headfirst into a foreign language situation again, people in germany who were bilingual told me that whatever language you learn to read and write in is the one you will always be most comfortable in, and i want this to be english for them just for practicality andthe advantages that confers.
was hoping that there was good access to english speaking education in netherlands but even the subsidised schools look like they would add up to a lot when you multiply by 4, so not sure.

furkew

Having lived in Holland for over 20 years, and now living in Australia with Dutch speaking children, learning a new language for kids comes a lot easier than you think. Although I am English, I always (and still do) spoke Dutch in the house with the kids. They did have a little contact with family speaking English over the years, but I never had time to teach them English properly. They learnt the language in 4 months over here. (8 & 11 years old)

They will have less problems than yourselves learning the language, and in Holland the kids all speak a basic amount of English at a fairly young age. I personally think that English speaking children will not face any major problems at school in Holland. An old neighbour of ours was English with a Spanish wife. The eldest was 8 and spoke perfect English, Spanish & Dutch.

If you have to pay for English education for the kids, it will cripple you, but dropping them in at the deep end in Holland will definitely be easier than in Germany.

davesmithsrm

We also looked at it from the point of view that if we paid for english education, our daughter would not easily make friends in the village we lived in (the nearest British school to us would be Brussels, one hour by car at least in the morning).

By putting kids in the local school "or the deep end as some call it" she learns the language, has made loads of friends and seems very relaxed about it all.

Interestingly, i went to pick her up from a friends house last weekend and, when shouting her name across the garden the dutch girl shouted back to me " she will come, i get her " in perfect english --- learning is two way i guess !

Rumpole

My understanding (I think an article in Elsevier magazine) was that there was now about 100 secondary schools offering bilingual education (tweetalig onderwijs) so it should be possible to find somewhere in most reasonable size towns.
There are also intenational schools in the larger cities. In the Hague, Amsterdam and a few other places there are fully independent international schools which are very expensive (maybe 20k/year?).

A somewhat cheaper option is that there are state run primary and secondary international schools in several of the larger cities. Here fees are more modest (in Eindhoven where we live ~3000 Euro for the primary school and I think ~6000 Euro for the secondary school). However I guess if you have 4 kids that still adds up to a lot of money!