A brand new primary school, which will not be built for two or maybe even three years. How do you get parents to warm up to that? That is a topic of discussion in Meppel. Today the campaign for so-called ‘parent declarations’ starts.
“It sounds a bit illogical,” admits Jeroen Koster. He works at the Kindpunt education foundation and will soon become director of the new school. “But to be able to start a new school, the government has come up with new rules. In the past you only had to have a number of students, now you have to collect parental statements from parents with children aged 2 to 4. To really get started, we have need 95.”
That is why a campaign is already being launched to make parents and children enthusiastic. “We are going to open the school there anyway”, explains Koster. The difference is in finances. “If 95 young children are now registered, it will become an independent school with its own budget. If that fails, we will become a secondary location of an existing Kindpunt school. That is why we invest a lot of time in this.”
Tonight the school will be present at a volleyball tournament in the Meppeler district of Nieuwveense Landen to advertise. There is also contact with childcare, but the official kick-off of the campaign was this morning. Then a toddler gym event was organized and there was an ice cream for everyone.
Manon Koning was the first parent to register her son. She is looking forward to a primary school in her own residential area. “The school is nice and close anyway, which is also safer. The children from the neighborhood now have to travel a long way to a school, while the road is not always safe.”
Despite the fact that the school does not yet exist, Koning is confident in it because she is already familiar with the organization. “We already know the form of education, and teachers and masters already. That feels good and fits well. We have a lot of confidence in it.”
“The fact that we come under Kindpunt is indeed an advantage,” adds Koster. “If we had started all over again, it would have been very difficult, then we would only have a story. But we’ve been working on it for a while. Here you can see on a small scale what we are going to do on a large scale.”
After Koning, seven more parents agreed and already registered their children. That means there are still 86 children to go for the organization. Kindpunt still has 3.5 months to do this. Entries must be submitted by October 15, 2022.
View the report about the new school of the Kindpunt education foundation: