Dutch School

Head’s Welcome

Welcome to the only Dutch speaking Primary school in Egypt! The Dutch Stream is an integral part of NCBIS. We are a bilingual school, offering Dutch Primary education, using both Dutch and English as language of instruction. After school hours, we also offer Dutch as a first language to Dutch speaking Secondary students.

Our aim is to prepare our students for a transition to both Dutch and English speaking schools, after they leave the Dutch Stream. It is our experience that our students make this transition easily.

Dutch and English are taught as a first language. We work closely together with The British Primary School of NCBIS. Both schools follow their own national curriculum (Dutch and UK) but we share the school’s mission and vision and pedagogical approach to teaching.

Our students join their friends in British Primary for music, physical education, assemblies, topic lessons and after school activities.

Our team consists of four qualified teachers: three Dutch class teachers and one specialised teacher for English. We also have an assistant for practical jobs.

We believe strongly that it is important for students to develop a love for learning and inquiry. In an ever developing world students need to be lifelong learners in order to keep developing their skills and knowledge. Our students grow up to be caring and responsible citizens.

We follow the progress of our students closely, through formative and summative assessments. We also use standardised tests of the CITO system. Moreover, we have British standardised tests for our students in group 7 and 8, in order to follow their progress in English. Social and emotional progress is followed using the ‘KIJK!’ system. We adapt our approach and programmes based on the needs of our students. In group 8 our students sit for their final CITO test, which gives an indication of what type of Dutch Secondary School is most suitable for the students, in case they move back to the Netherlands.

The Dutch Stream falls under the inspection of the Dutch Ministry of Education. Dutch inspectors visit the school on a regular basis and we comply with rules and regulations as set up by the Dutch authorities.

We are also affiliated to the Foundation for Dutch Education Worldwide (Stichting Nederlands Onderwijs in het Buitenland, or NOB). This foundation supports us with advice and organises courses for our teachers.

Everything we do at NCBIS is based around our values and delivering our mission to provide a learning environment that fosters both academic achievement and personal growth for everyone. We have recently become a Pathway School in the High Performance Learning (HPL) Programme. This honours our NCBIS motto to ‘Bring Out the Best in Everyone’.

If you would like to have more information about the Dutch Stream, please get in contact with Olga Kes, Head of Dutch: olga.kes@ncbis.co.uk

Olga Kes
Head of Dutch
olga.kes@ncbis.co.uk

You are most welcome to make an appointment to visit our school.

Curriculum

Our school offers Primary education for students in the age of 2 and a half years until 12 (Groep Peuters-Groep 8). Our curriculum is based on the guidelines of the Dutch Ministry of Education. This means we follow the Dutch ‘kerndoelen’ (attainment goals) which you can find using the following link: https://slo.nl/sectoren/po/.

Dutch language and maths are taught in Dutch. The subjects geography, history, biology and technology are integrated in topics lessons. During these topics-lessons, our students work together with their peers in the British Stream, based on the British Curriculum. This means that English is the language of instruction.

Our students also join their peers in the British Stream during Music and PE lessons, which are taught in English by specialist teachers.

For more information about the subjects our students follow with their peers in the British Stream, please refer to the web page of NCBIS Primary. You can find the link on the Home page.

For Dutch speaking students in Secondary School (from Year 7 to Year 11) we offer Dutch language lessons. These lessons are given after school from 2:40 to 5:00 PM.

Cultural activities

Apart from joining the many cultural activities NCBIS has to offer, we organise several cultural events for the Dutch Stream specifically. To name a few of the NCBIS cultural events:

Sinterklaas

Every year good old Sinterklaas arrives on the Nile to celebrate his birthday with the children of the Dutch Stream. It is a wonderful celebration, which we repeat on the Friday afterwards for all Dutch speaking children in Egypt.

King’s Day

We celebrate King’s Day in the traditional way with several games. Of course the students dress up in orange, red, white and blue!

Christmas

Christmas is a big event at NCBIS. Our NCBIS music and drama department prepare beautiful ‘winter concerts’ with Primary and Dutch students. Students and parents are also invited to the Christmas Fare. The annual Christmas dinner with the Dutch Stream is always a lovely event, just before our Christmas holiday.

Family picnic

In spring we visit the beautiful Egyptian countryside for a family picnic.

Dutch end of year production

We end each school year with our Dutch musical in which all Dutch Stream students, from the youngest to the oldest, are taking part.

Learning together

We believe that it is important that our students learn to cooperate with each other. We regularly organise activities in which our students cooperate with students of older and younger year groups. This teaches students to work together with children of different ages. They learn to adapt themselves to the level of the other.

We schedule learning activities using the approach of Structured Cooperative Learning. This is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Because they have to take different roles, they learn to be leaders and cooperators.

Our students have the opportunity to work together with students of both the Dutch and the British Stream of NCBIS. This enables them to learn to feel at ease in different group settings.

We believe that it is important that our students learn to cooperate with each other. We regularly organise activities in which our students cooperate with students of older and younger year groups. This teaches students to work together with children of different ages. They learn to adapt themselves to the level of the other.

We schedule learning activities using the approach of Structured Cooperative Learning. This is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Because they have to take different roles, they learn to be leaders and cooperators.

Our students have the opportunity to work together with students of both the Dutch and the British Stream of NCBIS. This enables them to learn to feel at ease in different group settings.