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 the language of instruction. Our aim is to enable our students to continue their education in both Dutch and English speaking schools, when they move on. It is our experience that our students make this transition easily, in both languages.

Dutch and English are taught as a first language. We work closely together with the British Primary School of NCBIS. Both streams follow the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP), a course of study which ‘prepares students to be active participants in a lifelong journey of learning’. Both schools follow their respective national curriculums for language (Dutch and English) and Mathematics, but apply the PYP pedagogical approach of inquiry based learning to these areas of the curriculum where possible. In each case the school has adapted these curriculum requirements to its international setting to ensure its relevance to our student population.

The Dutch Stream falls under the inspection of the Dutch Ministry of Education. Dutch inspectors visit our school on a regular basis and we comply with rules and regulations of the Dutch authorities. We are also affiliated to The Foundation for Dutch Education Worldwide (Stichting Nederlands Onderwijs in het Buitenland, or NOB) whom we can turn to for advice and who organise summer courses for our teachers.

The Dutch Stream consists of three combined classes: Nursery, groep 1 and 2, groep 3-4-5 and groep 6-7-8. We have small class sizes which enable us to give our students a lot of attention in order to cater for their individual needs.

Our students join their friends in the British Primary Stream during music, physical education, after school activities and during break times. They also cooperate closely with the British Stream students during the units of inquiry of the Primary Years Programme.

Our team consists of four teachers with Dutch teaching qualifications. We also have a specialised teacher for English and a teaching assistant.

It is our belief that it is important for students to develop a love for learning and inquiry, so they become lifelong learners, in order for them to be prepared to thrive in an ever developing world.

We follow the progress of our students closely, during formative and summative assessments. We also use standardised tests of the CITO system. 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.
If you would like to have more information about the Dutch Stream, please get in contact with me.

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

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.

the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate as a framework for our curriculum, which means that we use the pedagogical approach of the PYP.

Dutch language and maths are taught in Dutch. During the Units of Inquiry our students work closely together with their peers in the British Stream, which means that English is the language of instruction. Our students join their peers from the British Stream also during the Music and PE lessons, which are taught in English by specialist teachers.

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) at NCBIS allows us to deliver a comprehensive, international education to our students. It is delivered using the NCBIS Scope & Sequence documents, which have been custom made to include the objectives of the English National Curriculum and modified to meet the needs of our programme of inquiry and our host country, Egypt. They also better reflect the international diversity that is present in our classrooms.

The PYP aims to create a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, challenging and significant for learners in the 3–12 age range. The curriculum is transdisciplinary, meaning that it focuses on issues that go across subject areas.

The PYP is organised according to:

The written curriculum, which explains what our students will learn
The taught curriculum, which sets out how educators teach the PYP
The assessed curriculum, which details the principles and practice of effective assessment in the PYP

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:

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.
We also celebrate King’s Day in the traditional way with several games.
The annual Christmas dinner with the Dutch Stream parents is always a lovely event, just before our Christmas holiday.
In spring we visit the beautiful Egyptian countryside for a family picnic.
We end each school year with our Dutch musical where all Dutch Stream students, from the youngest to the oldest, will have a role.

Learning together

We believe that it is important that our students learn to cooperate with each other. We regularly organise activities where 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 also work together with the students of both the Dutch and the British Stream of NCBIS. By doing so, they learn to feel at ease in different group settings.