Parent's Review of Het Rijnlands Lyceum International School in Oegstgeest in Oestgeest, Netherlands

What is the name of your child's school? (Please report on one school per survey.)

Het Rijnlands Lyceum International School in Oegstgeest

In what town or city is this school located?

Oestgeest

How would you describe this school? (i.e. American, British, International, Local, etc.)

Local International

What grade levels are represented at this school?

6-10 IP, IB DP

How do most children get to school everyday? (bus, train, walk, etc.)

company bus If there is no then by bike 20+ min

How would you describe the facilities at this school? What extra-curricular activities are available?

Low level facilities, old books (2001 for science!), history book was...for local Dutch students translated in English, there are only 17-19 lessons per week instead of 23-24, no replacements for teachers who are ill, no computer lessons for 3 trimesters, schedule is floating as school uis too related to local liceum 9where it is based on) and teachesr work at both IS and RLO. Students can have 8:30-15:45 on Monday and 9:45-12:15 on Friday. One trimester we had only 2 (!!!) lessons per day for 2 days a week. It is allowed to smoke for 16+ at the schoolyard and administration admitted it was their decision, so 11+ see the smokers and can smell the smoke when they are out of the building or wait for parents.

What has this school done to help your child transition from the curriculum in your home country into the curriculum in your new country? Are there programs to prepare your child for repatriation?

Nothing as far as I know. the contrary - our child received less instructions about what is expected from him during tests. Some tests did not reflect what was studied during the course (questions asked in teh test were not explained during the lessons).

How would you describe the social activities available for parents through this school? Are there parent-teacher organizations?

There is a Parental Counsil that works fine and ask right questions, but we did not see that administration is willing to do much in that direction. We asked for chess club 3 times, proposed a trainer, Director promissed us 3 times and we still do not have it. Parental Counsil send last month a note to the administration that social activities are invisible for parents. Thus - kep in mind that this IS is local-based, goes under Dutch Ministry of Education and fees are much lower then for otehr intrnational schools, so their budget is quite low.

What advice would you give to someone considering enrolling their child in this school?

Check if your child is able to come home along if required and sometimes lessons are cancelled w/o announcement or children are left after school by the teachers if they fail to provide homework in time. Look closely at what your child is doing at school vs the program as we saw big delays from what should be done in copybooks and the reality. Check if your child actually USES schoolbooks in the class (i.e. actually follows teh program). Check the year of the books edition and if the books are related to the curriculum and not local Dutch translated. Read carefully how your child is evaluated by subject and explain to your child in advance as we still cannot understand how 4 can be a final grade from from 4,5,6,7. Talk to teachers. Make sure your child has an email address and can access to it regularly and the teachers have it. Our child received 3ce bad grades because he failed to access his email address (our fault) in the beginning of the year. Our child said that grades evaluations are not developed approprietly, do not reflect actual knowledge.

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