After the summer holidays, the new Child Center in Emmer-Compascuum will not accommodate three, but two schools. The Braakhekkeschool and De Hoeksteen were supposed to work together in the building, but they are now merging anyway.
The Braakhekkeschool is the Protestant-Christian primary school in the village and De Hoeksteen the Roman Catholic. At the beginning of 2019, both school boards announced that the two schools would merge in mid-2020 due to a declining number of students. At that time, about 60 students were still being taught at De Hoeksteen, while at De Braakhekkeschool the number stood at about 45. An external educational adviser was engaged to steer the process in the right direction.
Over time, there appeared to be so little internal support that the plug was pulled from the project. De Braakhekkeschool did merge in 2021 with the also Protestant-Christian primary school De Triangel in Emmer-Erfscheidveen. In Emmer-Compascuum, construction of the so-called Child Center was started at that time behind multifunctional center De Deele. A large building for public primary school De Mende (merger of De Meent and De Runde), the Braakhekkeschool and De Hoeksteen, plus childcare and toddler work.
To blend
“After the merger process of the Braakhekkeschool and De Hoeksteen was discontinued, the intention was that these schools would remain independent in the new Child Center, but would work very closely with each other. This could mean that some of the students from the two schools are mixed and therefore that those children end up in one group,” says Rob Kempers, chairman of Viviani, the education foundation to which the Braakhekkeschool belongs. With mixing, groups of some size can still be made. Both schools are small, with about forty students each.
In May of this year it became clear that this plan is not permitted by law at all. For that reason, the two school boards still committed to a merger, with steam and boiling water. At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, De Hoeksteen and the Braakhekkeschool will merge under the name Het Compas. “From a procedural point of view, almost all steps have been taken for this, only the two participation councils still have to give their formal approval,” says Béjanne Hobert, chair of the Executive Board of Primenius, the organization of which De Hoeksteen is a part.
Special education
Both Kempers and Hobert are pleased that the switch was made so quickly to bring about the merger between the two relatively small schools. “That is in the interest of the continued existence of good quality special education in Emmer-Compascuum.”