There is a letter on his desk. Registered: Dennis Wiersma, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education. “This is the beginning,” says Niels Strolenberg of the Promes education foundation in Meppel. “With this we are going to break through the legal walls of specialized education.” It doesn’t stop there for Strolenberg, he also wants to break through school walls. Literal.
Strolenberg is a director of Promes. Specialized education in Meppel and the region falls under this umbrella of education: the Reestoeverschool and the Mackayschool. A new vision has been drawn up for those schools, and the education minister must help with that. Strolenberg’s vision is that children who end up in specialized education should be able to change their level more easily. “We no longer want to comply with a number of provisions in the law. Then the special schools in Meppel have the opportunity to work more closely together. The law now blocks children from different schools from receiving education together. This allows us to provide opportunities for children who want to slow down, or want to speed up, increase.”
“I want to get rid of the easy sticking of stickers,” Strolenberg continues. “Boys and girls now receive a diagnosis, a sticker, too quickly. That is not always helpful for education for a student. It is about really seeing a student and arranging the learning environment accordingly. a dead straight path. A child develops at a varying pace, certainly in specialized education. But switching between types of school in specialized education, from daytime activities to school benches, or vice versa, that is very complicated. That has to be done differently.”
“I want children to be able to easily switch whether a combination can be made. Even for half-days. If a child does not communicate well, but can calculate well, it is almost impossible to take math lessons at the moment. a child will soon be able to receive supervised primary education at the Reestoeverschool in the morning and intensive supervision at the Mackayschool in the afternoon. But moving back and forth on the ladder does not really exist.”
Next week, Promes expects Minister Wiersma’s approval to make it easier for children to follow education in new forms. “I expect that we will have a trial period of five or six years. The time is also ripe to look at our education system differently. The ministry also recognizes that there should be no partitions between these types of education. Lots of all kinds of separate educational facilities, where children are separated from each other is something that is becoming more and more a thing of the past.”
Strolenberg takes breaking through the bulkheads very literally. “As far as I’m concerned, the sledgehammer is going in,” he says. He would prefer to move both schools to a new location where they are together under one roof. According to him, one joint location fits perfectly with the new situation that will arise if Wiersma agrees to his vision. “The possibilities are endless. If the special schools are under one roof, it becomes much easier and the quality of education skyrockets and children can receive education that suits them much more easily. Even several times a week if that suits them well. than the whole ‘special’ team of teachers together. They can then share knowledge more easily. Working together will really ensure success.” If Strolenberg succeeds in building a new building, Cosis wants to house the ‘t Boemeltje Children’s Day Center there, so that these children can also go back and forth ‘on the ladder’.