School advice in years 7 and 8: What if your child’s Dutch is holding them back?

“My child is bright enough for HAVO or VWO. But what if their Dutch brings down their school recommendation?”

It is a question we hear very often at Dutch for Kids.

Especially from Dutch families who have lived abroad for years and are planning to return to the Netherlands. But also from international families who already live in the Netherlands and whose children attend a Dutch school, while Dutch is not the main language spoken at home.

And I completely understand the concern.

For 13 years, we have been teaching Dutch to multilingual children all over the world. During that time, we have worked with many children who returned to the Netherlands in Years 7 or 8, as well as children who already attended Dutch schools but spoke another language at home.

And in Years 7 and 8, Dutch suddenly becomes very important.

The secondary school recommendation is getting closer, results from the school’s pupil monitoring system start to matter more and, eventually, your child will take the doorstroomtoets in Year 8.

But what if your child is academically very capable, while their Dutch is still catching up?

How does the Dutch school recommendation work if your child has lived abroad?

We teach many Dutch children who live outside the Netherlands.

Some have lived abroad since birth. Others moved abroad with their parents several years ago. They may attend an international, British, American, French or local school while still speaking some Dutch at home.

At some point, many parents start asking:

When is the right time to return to the Netherlands?

For some families, this is one of the reasons they deliberately choose to return while their child is in Year 7 or 8.

I completely understand that.

A child does not suddenly receive a secondary school recommendation based on one day or one test. The primary school looks at a child’s development over a longer period before issuing the official recommendation for secondary education in Year 8.

The school considers much more than a single test score. Teachers look at results from the pupil monitoring system, classroom performance, assessments, motivation, work habits and their overall picture of the child.

And when a child has recently moved to the Netherlands from abroad, I think it is particularly important to look at the whole child.

How did they perform at their international school? What do previous school reports show? How strong are they in maths? How quickly do they learn? What is their attitude towards learning? Which subjects are particularly strong?

Imagine a child who achieved excellent results for years at an international school, is very strong in maths and is clearly academically capable of a high level, but is still behind in Dutch spelling and reading comprehension.

You do not want that temporary language gap to be the only thing determining which secondary school level they enter.

Can a Dutch language gap lead to a lower school recommendation?

This is exactly the concern many parents bring to us.

Sometimes a child returns to the Netherlands in Year 7 and we see something like this:

• maths: very strong;
• English: excellent;
• general academic ability: strong;
• attitude towards learning: good;
• spoken Dutch: fine;
• Dutch spelling: behind;
• reading comprehension: difficult;
• grammar: gaps;
• academic Dutch and vocabulary: not yet at the expected level.

And actually, that is not surprising at all.

A child can be highly intelligent while simply never having been taught certain parts of Dutch.

Perhaps they have never learned Dutch sentence analysis. Maybe they do not know the Dutch spelling rules well enough. Perhaps they happily speak Dutch with Mum or Dad at home but have never learned how to analyse a complex informational text in Dutch.

Those are very different skills.

That is why it is important to distinguish between what a child is academically capable of and their current level of academic Dutch.

School advice for multilingual children already living in the Netherlands

There is another group of children we work with a lot.

Children who already attend a Dutch school but grow up speaking another language at home.

Perhaps one parent speaks Dutch and the other speaks English, Spanish, Polish or Italian. Or perhaps both parents speak another language at home and the child mainly learns Dutch at school.

These children can sometimes communicate perfectly well in everyday Dutch.

During a conversation, you may not notice any difficulties at all.

But as the language used at school becomes more complex, gaps can start to appear.

And this can become particularly noticeable in Years 7 and 8.

Texts become harder. Vocabulary becomes more abstract. Reading comprehension requires children to interpret information, identify main ideas, understand connections and read between the lines. Spelling and grammar become more complex too.

Meanwhile, that secondary school recommendation is getting closer.

First, we find out where your child is now

When parents come to us for help, we do not simply start “practising for Cito”.

First, we want to understand what is actually going on.

How is your child doing with spelling? What about reading comprehension? How broad is their Dutch vocabulary? How is their grammar? Which areas are already strong? And where are the gaps?

Sometimes we need to go back a little.

Perhaps there is something from Year 5 or 6 that was never taught properly, or something your child simply never encountered while attending school abroad.

That is okay.

Once we know where those gaps are, we can work on them very specifically.

During our online Dutch lessons, your child has their own professional Dutch teacher. Our lessons are taught by experienced teachers who understand the Dutch education system and know what multilingual children need.

Lessons are always one-to-one, so we do not have to follow a standard programme for every child.

We can look at exactly what your child needs and build from there.

And sometimes, within just a few months, we see enormous progress.

Cito, IEP or the doorstroomtoets: what is the difference?

This can be confusing, especially if you did not grow up with the Dutch education system yourself.

The old Cito Eindtoets is no longer used under that name. The final assessment in Year 8 is now officially called the doorstroomtoets.

Schools can choose from several approved tests. You may come across names such as the IEP doorstroomtoets, Cito Leerling in beeld, Dia, AMN and ROUTE 8.

Children also take assessments throughout primary school as part of a pupil monitoring system. Many parents still casually refer to these assessments as “Cito tests”.

The most important thing to understand is this:

Your child’s secondary school recommendation is not determined by one single test.

When does your child receive their secondary school recommendation?

In Year 8, your child first receives a provisional school recommendation.

The primary school bases this on your child’s development, results from the pupil monitoring system, assessments, classroom observations, motivation and work habits, among other things.

Your child then takes the doorstroomtoets.

If the test indicates that your child could manage a higher secondary school level than the provisional recommendation suggests, the primary school must generally reconsider and raise the recommendation.

There can be exceptions if the school believes that raising the recommendation would not be in the child’s best interests, but the school must be able to explain its reasoning.

After this process, your child receives their final secondary school recommendation.

Is the final school recommendation binding?

This is one of the biggest questions parents ask us.

Yes. The final recommendation from the primary school is leading when your child applies to secondary school in the Netherlands.

So if your child receives a HAVO recommendation, you cannot simply assume that a secondary school will ignore it and place your child in a VWO class.

But that does not mean you cannot do anything if you believe the recommendation does not accurately reflect your child’s abilities.

If you disagree with the school recommendation, talk to your child’s teacher and/or the school director.

And go into that conversation prepared.

Ask exactly what the recommendation is based on.

Look at your child’s development, results from the pupil monitoring system, school reports and assessment results.

And if your child has recently moved to the Netherlands, I would definitely bring previous international school reports and other relevant information too.

Because those reports may tell an important part of your child’s story.

Look beyond your child’s Dutch

This is perhaps one of the most important things to remember when your child has grown up abroad or is multilingual.

Try to separate these two questions:

What is my child academically capable of?

and:

How strong is my child’s academic Dutch right now?

Of course, your child needs a good level of Dutch to succeed in Dutch secondary education.

At HAVO and VWO level, texts become increasingly difficult and students need to read, write, study and work independently in Dutch.

So a Dutch language gap should absolutely be taken seriously.

But a language gap does not automatically mean that a child cannot cope with a particular academic level.

Imagine your child performs extremely well in maths, has always had excellent reports at their international school and learns new concepts quickly, but scores lower in Dutch reading comprehension.

Then it is worth looking further.

Why is your child scoring lower?

Do they not understand the content?

Or are certain Dutch words unfamiliar?

Do they need better reading comprehension strategies?

Is academic Dutch still the main difficulty?

Those are very different situations.

And that is exactly why it is so important to identify the problem early.

Do not wait until year 8

If you already know that your family will return to the Netherlands in one or two years, I would not wait until your child reaches Year 8.

They already start with us in group 1 with strengthening their academic Dutch.

And if your child is already in Year 7?

Then we can look very specifically at what they need.

We regularly see children make enormous progress throughout Years 7 and 8.

Not because we teach them tricks to achieve a higher test score, but because we strengthen the foundation they actually need: spelling, vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension and Dutch language skills.

And ultimately, your child has to do it themselves.

We always say that.

Their teacher can explain, practise, revisit missing skills and support them.

But the child makes the progress.

And we are incredibly proud when they do.

From an English-speaking background to the right school recommendation

Over the years, we have seen some wonderful examples of children who mainly spoke English at home, started at a Dutch school and worked incredibly hard on their Dutch during Years 7 and 8.

Children whose parents were genuinely worried at the beginning.

Will their Dutch determine their secondary school recommendation?

And who eventually received, for example, the HAVO recommendation they had worked so hard towards and which genuinely suited their abilities.

I love seeing that happen.

Of course, our teachers help. They identify the gaps, explain concepts again and practise very specifically.

But ultimately, the child does the work.

And when that school recommendation finally arrives, we are incredibly proud of them.

My 11 year old has been having lessons for the past 3 years. The lessons this year focused on improving her Group 7 comprehension and vocabulary. We are very pleased with her progress and especially the results of her last Cito test where she jumped from below to above average. It is really great to see this kind of improvement possible with the coaching and lesson plans provided by Dutch for Kids. Thank you! – Trish

What can you do if you disagree with the school recommendation?

Try not to stop at: I don’t think this recommendation is right.

Ask the school why they reached that recommendation.

Where does the teacher see your child’s strengths? What are their concerns? Is Dutch the main difficulty, or are other factors involved? How is your child performing in maths? What do previous school reports show? How has your child developed over the past few months?

If you still believe the recommendation does not reflect your child’s abilities, discuss this with the teacher and school director.

If you cannot reach an agreement, you can use the school’s complaints procedure.

Ideally, however, you want to start these conversations much earlier.

Especially when your child has recently entered the Dutch education system after living abroad.

Every expat child has a different story

And that is probably why I think this subject is so important.

There is no standard route for “the expat child returning to the Netherlands”.

One child has followed Dutch lessons alongside international school for years and makes the transition almost effortlessly.

Another speaks fluent Dutch but can barely write it.

And another has hardly used Dutch for years and needs to make enormous progress before entering Dutch secondary school.

That is why, at Dutch for Kids, we always look at the individual child.

Where is your child now? Where do they need to go? And what do they need to get there?

Because ultimately, we all want the same thing:

For a child to enter a secondary school level that genuinely reflects what they are capable of.

Not a lower level simply because their Dutch is temporarily behind.

But also not a level where they constantly struggle to keep up.

Just the place that is right for them.

Dutch support for Years 7 and 8 and the secondary school recommendation

At Dutch for Kids, we have been teaching Dutch to Dutch and multilingual children in the Netherlands and abroad since 2013.

Our online Dutch lessons are taught by professional, experienced Dutch teachers and are always one-to-one.

We do not look at just one Cito, IEP or other assessment result. We look at your child’s overall Dutch language level: spelling, language, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension.

That allows us to focus specifically on the areas where your child still needs support.

Are you worried about your child’s Dutch level?

Are you currently living abroad and planning to return to the Netherlands within the next year or two?

Perhaps you are wondering whether Year 7 or 8 would be a good time to return. Or perhaps you want to start preparing your child now so that the transition into Dutch education will be easier.

Or maybe you already live in the Netherlands, but Dutch is not the main language spoken at home and you are worried about Year 7, Year 8, Cito, IEP, the doorstroomtoets or your child’s secondary school recommendation.

Book a free introductory meeting with us below.

We will look at where your child is now, what they are struggling with and how we can best support their Dutch.

Because during these important school years, it can make a huge difference to know that you started in time.