Moving back to NL/ Homeschooling in NL

[mrflowers]

I read a thread a while back on this forum, someone was asking about homeschooling in NL. While it is pretty much illegal, it can be done! I've been itching to get on here and tell you guys about it. Under section 5a and b of the Leerplichtwet, if you have a religious or philosophical difference with all of the schools within 20 km of your home, you can apply for vrijstelling, which is a sort of freedom from the schooling law. I joined a yahoo group of Dutch homeschoolers, which has given me a lot of answers. Many people receive vrijstelling when they apply under Holism/ Holistic/ AP philosophical reasons. There is a guy on the list who maintains a list of homeschooling-friendly gemeentes.
So it can be done! It really helps if your child has never been ingeschreven, or registered, at any school. Even if they have been registered, it can still be done. I am determined to HS when we move there (we have been hs-ing the kids their whole lives), as it is a huge part of our family philosophy. If any of you are interested, you can look on the Nederlandse Vereniging voor ThuisOnderwijs website, I think it's NVvTO.nl.

[PumpkinSeeds]

Welcome! :hs:

When are you moving back?

[mrflowers]

Thank you!

I think we will be moving back either in late June or sometime in July.

[wobbema]

Hi Mercy...

Welcome!!!
And thanks for the info!!

we are seriously thinking about it too... although wobbe is only 7 months now...
we heard you have to register to a school very early (around NOW for us), and I'm afraid that if I don't put him on a waiting list now, we can't get a nice school at all in case we might need it (if our request will be turned down). But if we DO put him on a waiting list NOW, will that make it more difficult for us to get it done?
also, we live in amsterdam centre, do you think we could get it done with having around a 1000 schools within 20 km ???
well i'll go and inform myself at the website you gave us (i already knew it by the way, but thanks anyway)

and oegstgeest is lovely, at least the area is ! and i love leiden!

and hey, first dutch lessson: its: DOEI....!!

take care, enjoy your pregnancy and good luck with moving here...

Angela!
mom of Wobbe 21-09-2006

[mrflowers]

Hi Angela,

I don't know if having a child on a waiting list for school is the same thing as the child being ingeschreven, at least in the eyes of the Dutch government. You can read the Leerplichtwet online; there's something in there about the child having not attended school in the last year or two. So if attendance is the key-word, and the child is younger than the age of 5 when you know that you want to HS, you could probably get out of being registered. Because they're not legally required to attend school until the age of 5.

You can look up the gegevens for Amsterdam (-Zuid) and other gemeentes as far as being HS friendly at
http://www.prowat.nl/actieslpas.htm
It seems that it's a matter of being very well-prepared, and also the luck of the draw in whether you get a reasonable lpa or not. Let me know if you would like the name of the yahoo group (there are many!). They have been a big help to me. A lot of people on there have gotten vrijstelling on the basis of richtingbezwaar Holisme/ AP.

[SuzymomofLaura]

Hi Mercy!!!
:!wback:

And thanks for sharing the info on homeschooling, I just looked up the nvvto.nl site, VERY interesting!!!

[mrflowers]

Isn't it, though? When we were making the decision to come back (or not), for me it was entirely based on the possibility of continuing to homeschool. It seemed insane to go from living in a state where there is total and complete freedom in how you educate your child(ren), to a country where, for all intents and purposes, HS-ing is illegal. But it CAN be done! I find that very exciting and hopeful. And for a country with only about 95 HS-ing families, NL has a very good variety of HS-ing support groups and information sites.

[krizzanne]

Hi Mercy,
Welcome to the site, and I hope you do come soon to The Netherlands, the more the merrier!

Thank you for posting the Home school info! Could you maybe cut and paste the info and write it in the school thread that Angela (Wobbema) started? I am going to ask the moderator to make a 'sticky' out of that thread.

So do you have family here, already?

Good luck with your plans and your pregnancy!

Krissie

[mrflowers]

Hi Krissie,

I will pop over to the schooling thread and put all of the info I can think of on there. If I forget something or leave it out, let me know.

[krizzanne]

:dizzy: I think mind-boggling craziness would fit! Did you unpack everything from the last move?

Hey, I lived in Silver Spring, MD for 12 yrs (we moved to Europe from there). I always said I would never move back there, but now it's the place in the US I would most like to go to!

Thanks for putting the homeschool info up...did you see, it's a sticky now!

[mrflowers]

Krissie,

How funny--you used to live in Silver Spring!! We were in Gathersburg for 6 mos., and then Germantown. It is a really nice area, but it has gotten out-of-control expensive. We moved there from NL in late 2000, and right after that, the prices (on everything!) started to go up steeply.

I sort of wish that we had moved to NL from there (only a 6-7 hour flight) rather than from here (12-15 hours, depending on price). But we just didn't even think of it! We were never going to go back to NL, so it wasn't in our frame of reference. So now we have a looooong haul... Oh well! At least all of the moving keeps us from accumulating too much crap!