Small -scale education, personal guidance and lessons in the middle of nature. Not a traditional class with thirty students, but an alternative approach that fits the child and the environment. Private schools have more room to give substance to education in their own way.
A private school, also known as B3 school, does not receive any money from the government. In exchange, these schools can organize their education themselves. No mandatory methods or government regulations on what a school day looks like, as long as they meet the core objectives that the ministry has set.
Parents pay the education itself, and that can rise considerably in comparison with the voluntary parental contribution that you must pay at a school that is financed by the government. Yet people consciously opt for this type of education, because of the freedom and customization it offers.
Also in Drenthe there are parents and teachers who want to do it differently than the regular system allows. They start their own school, with their own vision. Such as Eliyah van Oers, who previously worked in regular education and now realizes his dream in Witteveen to let children learn from their own motivation. The school has started with one student, and now has national recognition as a private educational institution.
With regard to private schools, Drenthe is mainly about primary schools. For secondary education, it is still regularly moved to a regular high school. There are private primary schools that also teach older children and are therefore a high school at the same time.
Flow Development in Emmen, a new -time school with 16 students, is in the middle of the process of developing a secondary education department. Melanie Herbers is in the management: “We notice that there is a lot of demand for it. Many high school students are unhappy, are not comfortable in their own skin, do not fit the way in which the lessons are given at a regular high school. We would really like to give a place to those children, we already have a number on the waiting list.”
But setting up a high school is not without a struggle. “What we mainly encounter is the shortage of teachers. In primary school, one teacher can give all the lessons if necessary, but in secondary education you need a teacher for English, one for Dutch, mathematics … And they are not easy to find.”
It may sound free: a school that can determine how it teaches. But that does not mean that a completely own course can be sailed. Private primary schools must also adhere to the core objectives that apply to all schools in the Netherlands. Simply put: at the end of primary school, every child must be able to be about the same in terms of language, arithmetic and world orientation. How a school tackles that, they can know for themselves. Whether with booklets, outside in the forest, or in small groups with a lot of personal attention.
Even though private schools fall outside the regular system, they are indeed checked. For example, the Education Inspectorate looks at whether the schools meet the legal requirements, such as the mandatory learning objectives. A private school must also be safe and have a clear educational plan.
It is striking that it concerns a small number of schools, often with an even smaller number of students. Where special education such as Protestant-Christian or Catholic is still well represented in Drenthe, the number of private schools is limited.
These schools have passed the tests and were included in the official register of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science: