Hi there!
When Jeanine received an opportunity to move to the Netherlands for work, we were thrilled!
Our excitement came to a screeching halt once it sunk in that we need to find Caitlin (then 8) and Ethan (then 5) a new school,
but also that they will need to learn a new language. We did a lot of research and considered both the international
and public Dutch school trajectory.
What an absolute blessing to find out about the Taalschool concept!
It is really daunting not knowing where to start, but the team took us by the hand and helped us to not only get the kids enrolled,
but even made suggestions on places to eat and things to see! Utrecht Taalschool understands that kids come from different backgrounds and have many more needs than just learning Dutch. Our kids received both mental and emotional support and stimulation from their teachers.
As parents, we were continuously informed of their progress and we could hear the first Dutch words surfacing after less than a month!
Our 2 “dutchies” have since moved on to their permanent Dutch school and we couldn’t be happier with their progress.
This is all thanks the Utrecht Taalschool!
Renate & Jeanine Gericke-Ferreira
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It was a wonderful opportunity and experience for our children (Anindita and Ankan) to study in the Taalschool of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Our daughter studied there for about one and a half years and our son for about one year. They liked the school here and enjoyed their school a lot.
Our daughter Anindita was always comparing her schools between Bangladesh and the Netherlands.
She was saying, here the school is a different world for the children, equipped with all the facilities necessary to facilitate a child's development.
We also understood that the academic programs in your school are designed with well defined goals, objectives and learning outcomes which are also linked with appropriate assessment.
We are really surprised to see and we must appreciate that the school programs are also designed to develop different skills for the children,
which is very uncommon in our country.
The curriculum is well balanced to learn the Dutch language as well as other necessary subjects on the basis of their age groups.
Extracurricular activities are also well designed to develop a child's mind to become a good human being.
The curriculum also facilitates children's social and emotional development.
Speech and play therapy facilities are available for the slow learners or who need special support in their academic, physical and mental development. Goals are also set on the basis of an individual child's position in certain circumstances.
Teachers are very caring, well trained, friendly and are very responsible for their students. Teachers are always encouraging children to reach their full potential.
We really liked the assessment technique, because it is not only designed to assess a student's academic ability, but also designed to assess the skills and behavioral development of a student. The assessment done by the class teachers for our children is really true and we must appreciate it.
This kind of assessment is only possible for a teacher when he/she assesses a student's activity on a daily basis throughout the program.
We know this is not an easy task, We must appreciate their hard work.
An educational institution is known by its quality teachers and your Taalschool is an example for this.
We met some of your highly efficient teachers like Juf Marleen, Juf Michelle, Juf Mary, Juf Inge, Juf Els, Juf Anita and some other teachers in your school. It was really wonderful to talk with them, sharing the academic progress and development of our children.
Class teachers were so kind and caring enough during the corona pandemic.
They visited our children at home personally and sometimes made video calls to talk with us and our children for continuing academic progress and achievement. This is what we have experienced or what we have heard from our children. I guess, the school has many more other activities to facilitate children's academic progress and development that we could not explore due to the corona pandemic.
What we can say is that not only our children have wonderful experiences, but also we got some good ideas about the quality education systems in the Netherlands.
We hope to share our experiences of your quality education system in different educational platforms of Bangladesh to improve the quality of education in Bangladesh. We are really happy and grateful to you all for taking care of our children.
With our best regards,
Sukumar and Ruma
(Parents of Anindita and Ankan)
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