Admission of students

Who is the school intended for?

The Primary Dutch Bilingual offers education to children who meet the following requirements:

• Children with a foreign nationality who will stay in the Netherlands for a longer period of time and who need to be prepared for the Dutch education system.
• Children with a Dutch nationality who need to be prepared for the Dutch education system again after a stay abroad.
• Dutch children whose parents choose the school as an internationally oriented primary school.

Applications

Our school follows the admission rules as prescribed by law. This means that children aged four may attend school, but this is not yet mandatory. They may, however, attend school once for one morning beforehand, from the age of 3 years and 10 months, to get to know their teacher and the other students. Children may start as soon as they are 4 years old.

Compulsory education begins when the child is five years old, in which case he/she must go to school. This obligation begins on the first school day of the month following the month in which the child turns five. We apply the educational principle of a two-year preparatory period for our youngest pupils. This may mean that they spend consecutive school years in group 1. To move on to group 2 (5-6 year olds), your child must be 5 years old before January 1.

Pupils who meet the age requirement can be admitted to our school, regardless of nationality, religion or other personal beliefs. Brothers and sisters of children who are already at school have priority in admission. The school office can provide you with all information regarding application and registration. The school is then responsible for placing your child in the right group. If necessary, tests and/or external research are part of the admission procedure. Placement of a pupil depends on the group size and the level of care in the group and/or for the child.

Admission Procedure

To submit an application, you fill in an online registration form (via our website: www.isecampus.nl). The school office will then make an appointment with you to visit the school for an orientation and/or intake meeting. After registration, the school has 6 weeks to decide on the definitive admission of the pupil. This period can be extended once by 4 weeks. If the board has not made a decision after 10 weeks, the pupil is entitled to temporary placement until the school has found a suitable place. If parents do not agree with the school’s admission decision, they can call on support from an education consultant. Education consultants mediate between parents and the school free of charge. If that does not work, parents can contact the national disputes committee for ‘passend onderwijs’. This procedure also applies to the admission of brothers and/or sisters of previously placed pupils.

The admission procedure is as follows:

1. Parents/guardians register their child by completing the online registration form
2. Parents/guardians receive confirmation of this registration from the school office
3. The registration form is added to the Open Apply checklist. Parents ensure that all requested documentation from the checklist is provided to the school, such as school reports, a copy of the passport, support plans and additional information about the child’s development.
4. Once the checklist is complete and all documents have been received, the admissions committee will review and assess the application. As part of the admissions process, the ISE can, with the permission of the parents, contact the previous school. The admissions committee will inform the parents of the admission decision within 6 weeks. If it appears that placement in a group is not suitable on educational and/or social-emotional grounds, the management will decide, after consultation with the parents, to proceed to placement in another group.
5. A. If the admission is complete, a confirmation of admission will be sent to the parents. If additional documents are required, this will be communicated to the parents
   B. If the pupil is not accepted, the parents will be informed of the reason for the rejection and will be assisted in finding a suitable school.
6. It is possible that pupils will be placed on a waiting list if there is no immediate place in the group. Parents will be informed of this immediately.

You must provide the school with the complete documentation of your child’s previous educational history. If it later turns out that this information is incomplete or incorrect, we will not proceed with placement.

The documentation must in any case contain:

• School reports from the last 2 years (if possible)
• Test data
• If applicable: information about care with regard to specific needs that was provided by the previous school, including copies of individual support plans, test results and external research reports.

All students must have a BSN number (tax number, available from the tax office). You must provide this to the school.

Admission of students with special needs

The ‘Wet Passend Onderwijs’ stipulates that schools have an obligation to care for all registered students. A suitable school needs to be found for all children. In order to be able to offer all children good education, regular and special schools together form regional partnerships (samenwerkingsverbanden). The schools in the partnership make agreements about the support for pupils and the financing thereof. The school where a child is registered is obliged to first see whether the child can receive extra support in the classroom. If the school itself cannot offer a suitable education, another regular school within the partnership that can offer the right support or a school for special education needs to be found. Our school guide describes for which children and in what way our school can accommodate for educational needs.

Due to the international basis of the school, most teachers are experts in the field of language (also in English) and NT2 (Dutch as a foreign language). The presence of special language classes (extra support in Dutch or English)  is a special provision, tailored to our population of children. Because there is a large influx of new children during the year and this requires extra support, we work with teaching assistants. They can also be deployed if, in an incidental case, the group size exceeds 24 children. In both the Dutch and the international department we have experts at our disposal who can support the children individually or in a small group. Finally, the ISE has an extensive care team (Learning Support Team) that monitors the student care at our school.

Policy regarding early progression / retention

The school makes early progression or retention possible for the pupils. Any decision takes into account both educational results and social-emotional wellbeing of the student. The Education Inspectorate expects this attitude from every school.

Criteria that must be followed for early progression/retention:

1. Request from parents and/or a proposal from the teacher.
2. Request/proposal is handled by the learning support coordinator.
3. The procedure is discussed in a meeting with parents.
4. An extensive internal investigation, both in educational and social-emotional areas. If necessary, an external investigation will follow.
5. Based on the results, the management decides whether or not to allow early progression/retention.
6. Decision is discussed with the parents

Withdrawal

Withdrawal of students must be done in writing. A withdrawal form is available at the school office, or on our website. The school office would like to hear from you well in advance that your child will be leaving the school. It takes an average of 4 weeks to prepare the report and the declaration of school attendance for you.