My kid's FIRST year of DUTCH SCHOOL - How was it? Grades, Friends, Classes & More

[@eddys.3524]

Great to hear Cam has made friends... that's what makes life worth living.

[@natalieshelby9800]

This has given me such relief! When we move in April my son will be 7. I’ve been so worried about how he’ll do, and I’m so glad to see your son thriving. Thank you for these videos they have been so informative. I’ve been stressing about my kids going to school there (logistical things) and you have helped so much!

[@Anna133199]

This is a great age to learn languages! It's good for Cam that you decided to move here this early.

[@DraganGrazic]

Goed om the horen, dat het zo goed gaat met hem. (En jullie natuurlijk.)

[@johncrwarner]

Good to hear that Cam is doing so well at school. I hope it continues.

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Thanks, John! Me too!!!

[@nicovantol7363]

That's great to hear that Cam isn't having problem's with the language,whe parent's worry to mutch cause most of the times there aren't any problems between kids. I bet that a lot of kids from his class love to play with him and talk about the USA with him. Looking forward to your next video and have a good week !!!

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Thank you, Nico! and yes, we do😅 Hope you have a great week as well❤️ !!

[@starbase218]

If I had an American kid in my class when I was in primary school, for sure me and many others would be quite curious and interested. The US has such a cultural impact on us, and most I knew was only from the movies.

[@bas7492]

I think the blue line in the charts you showed are not the kids in Cam's class. The key to the graph says " OPP doelen". Looking that up, I found that that means "Ontwikkelingsperspectief" doelen, which would translate to Development perspective goals. For kids that need extra support in school, the school sets goals that he or she is expected to reach when they leave school. That is what those blue lines show.

[@Nitzpitz]

Great video! When I came to the Netherlands in 1989 (I was 8 at the time), there was no such thing as an immersion school. The school did want to put me in groep 3 instead of groep 5, but my parents said I would do just fine. So I started in groep 5 without a word of Dutch and also without knowing the Latin Alphabet. I would get private or small group lessons in writing and Dutch during the language lessons of my own class. At the end of the first school year O was fluent in Dutch and today people sometimes don’t even believe me when I say it is nog my first language. Don’t worry, Cameron will do just as well as any kid his age.

[@Nitzpitz]

@Just Jasmine’s Journey I am sure he will. Kids are fast learners. He will be helping you soon enough ;)

[@Nitzpitz]

@Just Jasmine’s Journey I am sure he will. Really, the best way to help your kid have a smooth transition is to try and intergrate into Dutch society yourselves. Kids have a much easier time than their parents. So, learn the language, become active in something like a sport club, choir, or anything that will help you to build an off-line social network. Try to make friends with other parents or with colleagues or neighbors. This will make your life more fun, help you settle down and make this country your own. A network will help you in many ways and your son will benefit. What region are you moving to?

[@Nitzpitz]

@Just Jasmine’s Journey That's great! Much easier to get to know people in a village. Also, if your husband is Dutch, it is much easier too and you may already have a network of family and friends. Good luck with your move and have fun in your new place. Immigrating is not an easy step, but it will bring you many new and exciting experiences for sure!

[@filevikingtube]

Great news about your son, I am really happy for you all.

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Thank you so much, Gertje!

[@Dutchbelg3]

Great Cam does so well ! Must be such a relief to watch :-)

[@carmenjones925]

great job Cam , proud of you.!

[@annayosh]

Looking at the report, the blue line says 'OPP Doelen' - so that's not "kids in his class" but "level that the school aims for"

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Thank you for clearing that up, Andre!

[@resi3794]

Love it that cam did so well and that he is loving it here. Give it another year and you will be a dutch 100%. and remember your new born is born here so already dutch 😊. And i have to say it you yourself are looking beautifull, pregantcy becomes you.

[@gygyabroad]

Cam is a champion!! 😍😍

[@orangeguppie6897]

What ever the new milestone is you will cry, it does not matter how big or how small the milestone is. It has to do with the fact they start a new fase in his life, that makes us proud but also you remember the stages he is gone through. It is...double. in Dutch (het is dubbel) in this case meaning emotions going back in time and into the new fase. ( i hope this makes sence) but i think this is universal. Greetings from the village Klaaswaal (Hoeksche Waard) near Rotterdam. Bye

[@taand4725]

Kids learn a lot faster than we do. Soon he'll be teaching you Dutch😉

[@livinglife.digital3399]

😀 He already is! and yes, they do!

[@Vanoux2007]

Congratulations!!!!!

[@alexandergrofics1885]

Wow! Well done Cam! 👍

[@williamgeardener2509]

Dutch education is meant to be a fun experience for kids without stress. It's set up according to the "My playing is learning, my learning is playing." principle. Kids will learn much better from fun things than from tedious chores. You can give a kid a book about insects and teach them what a butterfly is, or you can take them out in nature and show them while you also teach them to respect nature. As for the liability issue: We do not know huge compensations for pain and suffering and emotional distress and all the other nonsense like in the USA. In the Netherlands it's more like: "Ok, so your kid fell during the field trip. We put a band aid on his scraped knee. He'll be fine." No one is even going to think about suing the school, no court will even hear the complaint. And even if something more serious would happen; your kid has a healthcare insurance so all your expenses are taken care off. There's no reason to sue, there's no reason for schools to be afraid of costly legal battles.

[@NinaW1n]

I like how you say that Cam was in a public school, ‘not a Montessori school, not a Waldorf school, no private school.’ (Waldorf is called ‘vrije school’ in Dutch.) Almost all Montessori schools here are public schools, actually: most schools in general are, Montessori, Dalton etc. too. In the Netherlands almost no one goes for private schools, only expats send their children there. The difference between public and private schools isnt that big as in the US or the UK, though the classes are smaller the education is the same. The school he was in last year, where they focused on the Dutch language, thats something thats different in every city, some cities have the agreement that children who can not speak the language well enough they go for a ‘schakelklas’ school first, but in other cities he could have started on a neighbourhood school right away.

[@ThW5]

Not really, the main classes of Dutch schools are the "Bijzondere" (particular or special) schools and "Openbare" (Public) schools, both of these are paid for by "the State", the particular schools may have a religious denomination, as in belonging to a specific church, or set of churches or generic christian, or hindu, islamic, and so on but they can have specific views on education/child raising which are not religious too, anong them we find Montessori, Dalton etc, (though indeed Public Montessori schools are a thing too). Those particular schools have specific rights, but those rights are not unlimited. About two out of three schools at Cam's level are schools with a signature, rather than public state schools, and a majority of kiddies of his age goes to one. As this allows people to have their children educated in schools with their kind of "signature", both home schooling and private schooling are rare things.

[@NinaW1n]

Isnt that what I am saying? ‘Bijzonder onderwijs’ is not the same as a private school. She makes the distincion: ‘he does not go to a Montessori or Waldorf school, but to a public school’, as in ‘not to a private school.’ But here Montessori schools are not private schools.

[@ThW5]

@@NinaW1n No, you're not. It is not the same as a "public school" either. In the Netherlands the distinction between "Openbaar" and "Bijzonder" is basically whether the school is in the end run as a service by (or for) a layer of government, or as a sort of NGO in its own right, this of course limits the amount of influence the government can have on what happens in a school... So no getting prayer out of school, bringing God back in it or introducing pledges to flags.

[@NinaW1n]

I assume you are a Dutch teacher, like me, so I am switching to Dutch, maybe the misunderstanding is in the translation? Het gaat me niet om het verschil bijzonder vs openbaar onderwijs, maar over of het privé onderwijs is of niet. Nederlandse ouders maakt het doorgaans niks uit of hun kind op een openbare Montessorischool of een bijzonder neutrale Montessorischool zit, ze kiezen alleen níet snel voor particulier onderwijs, zoals Amerikanen of Engelsen wel zouden doen. In Nederland zitten de kinderen van politici, van burgemeesters, van wetenschappers niet op privescholen, maar gewoon op de school om de hoek. Zelfs de prinsesjes zaten gewoon op een openbare school, daar hoef je in Engeland niet mee aan te komen. Veel expats in NL doen hun kinderen wél op een particuliere school, omdat zij van huis uit gewend zijn dat dit een groot verschil maakt met de openbare scholen, maar in Nederland is dat dus niet zo. Vrijwel niemand doet zijn kind op Winford, Blankestijn of Florencius. Daarom vind ik het grappig dat ze expliciet zegt: ‘we hebben hem niet op een Montessori, Vrije School of prive-school gedaan, maar op een gewone huis-tuin-en-keukenschool’, dat zij als Amerikaanse deze 3 soorten dus als tegenhanger van ‘de school in de wijk’ ziet, terwijl dit in het NL onderwijs geen tegenhangers daarvan zijn. Hier ís de Montessorischool de school in de wijk. Misschien heb ik zo wat beter duidelijk kunnen maken waar het me om ging.

[@ThW5]

@@NinaW1n What you were talking about was clear to me. On the other hand: with 6608 elementary schools, of which 2026 are public (Openbaar), 1920 Protestant-Christian and 1987 Roman Catholic and 675 having another particular signature, and with just 160 Montessori schools divided over those four classes, i.e. less than 1 in 41 of the schools is a Montessori school, so most Dutch parents will share her opinion that Montessori schools are NOT your everyday neighbourhood schools. On the other hand, an American giving any attention to school choice, failing to notice and mention the Christian denomination of the school chosen, would stun me, and the connections of services/trajects to get kids into regular education tend to be better with the "Openbare".

[@NaomiClareNL]

So Cam is now totally a Dutch kid! 😜 Congrats to Cam for succesfully completing his first year in school and best wishes for this year. Must be a huge relief for you as parents. Don't know if it is still done or even done here in South Holland but when and where I grew up (1970s Veluwe area of Gelderland), we always showed our schoolreport to our grandparents and they would give us a bit of money for the good grades.

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Yes, he is😊!! It's definitely a huge relief! He would definitely love that tradition😃

[@har3036]

@@livinglife.digital3399 You may have to start calling him "my Dutch child".

[@janschoonhoven2727]

I am from the veluwe and we have same traditon only my luck was that My grandmother had Alzheimer's. 😂

[@FacelessJanus]

Maybe have Cam, do a short story about his first day at school. Like maybe you can do some type of interview. I think it would be interesting for many people to hear his own impressions, making it an interview would at least let you direct the storyy a bit, so the info you want to be shared comes forward in the video. (Just an idea.)

[@taand4725]

How about keeping your kids away from your social media. They didn't ask for the attention.

[@ric84]

@@taand4725 i agree 100%

[@starbase218]

I do wonder though, if I may ask, do you feel like this will become your country? Like, can you relate to people in The Netherlands well? Or is there still a cultural gap there? Lol. I paused the video while typing this. On resuming you say you've made friends with some of Cam's friends parents. That's nice.

[@RAWDernison1]

Not sure about Cam's age, but did he ever use the word "vriendinnetje"?

[@jannetteberends8730]

A question, is the new school in your neighborhood. Can he walk to school?

[@livinglife.digital3399]

Yes it is! It's about a 10 min walk; however, there's a bunch of busy roads so we bike in instead and that only takes us 4 mins.