Using a standardised test like InCAS allows them to monitor progress over time, and compare the performance of different year groups. InCAS tests are designed to be fun, with a quiz format and the whole class taking the test at the same time. Children work on individual computers with headphones. They complete some practice questions first, and an animated character explains what they have to do.
Children are given a series of questions, starting with easy ones and increasing in difficulty. You may not be given the exact results from the tests, as teachers will usually use them to inform their assessment and curriculum levels in Scotland or levels of progression in Northern Ireland.
Start your trial for FREE today! Access thousands of brilliant resources to help your child be the best they can be. Subscribe to add to wishlist. What are InCAS tests? The tests cover six key areas of learning: Reading : word recognition, decoding and comprehension.
Spelling Maths : counting, place value, fractions, problem-solving, measures, shape, space and data handling.
- Why does school attendance matter?.
- Human Resource Management: A Critical Approach.
- General ultrasound in the critically ill!
- The National Curriculum, and P levels?
- My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times.
- Defining the Modern Museum: A Case Study of the Challenges of Exchange (Cultural Spaces)!
Mental maths : addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Developing ability: a measure of learning potential, based on language and non-verbal skills. Attitudes towards reading, maths and school life. Of course not all these options may be available in your area. This is a real problem, especially in Amsterdam.
Testing, Assessing, and Examining
Schools are well-funded and monitored through a quality assurance system. If they are not doing well there is a government body that will come in and assist them. All the same, issues like bad attendance and lack of motivation and discipline give some VMBO-schools a bad reputation. Gymnasia, on the other hand, are notorious for attracting children from elitist families, who tend to put greater pressure on their children to score well and go to university. Once your child has survived all this cito-stress and enrolled at a school that is within reasonable cycling range — he or she becomes a brugpieper.
This is what the Dutch call a pupil in the first and sometimes second year of secondary school, or brugklas. He can then go on to a WO , or research university.
For VMBO-pupils there are 4 different directions, varying from the very practical learning a trade to a more theoretical training. After 4 years the pupil can continue his education at an MBO -school secondary vocational education. This wonderfully egalitarian system allows late-bloomers to grow and under-achievers to readjust their ambitions.
Cambridge Assessment International Education Official Website
The only drawback is that changing levels often means changing schools entirely. In fact the World Economic Forum ranks education in the Netherlands as the 5th best in the world. No wonder Dutch children are reported to be amongst the happiest children in the world. Yep, all those abbreviations are hard and confusing. If you need some more explanation and want to learn more Dutch in an easygoing way we suggest you have a look at our education category!
What do you think of the Dutch school system? Need a class on going to class? Let us know in the comments below! Great blog! Nice that you also included some traditions as the graduation ceremony. As the Netherlands is a very international country, there are also good international schools. I had spoken Dutch […]. Dutch education system is truly awful. It lets the kids down. And most resent it later in life for either too much or too little stress depending on whether they are gymasium or vmbo kid.
Primary education is a very low by world standards. I fear that you are correct. The main difference between Dutch education and the rest of the world is time and the knowledge and skill acquired within that time, ie efficiency. Dutch education is inefficient. It takes its time. Kids are approximately two years behind foreign education systems. Developmentally, this is a recipe for disaster.
The UK national curriculum, examinations and qualifications
It means kids with learning difficulties will be identified or receive help two or even three years later than their foreign counterparts. Scientific research shows evidence that the earlier slow learners are identified the better the outcome later in life. Its common sense. For example, if a child finds maths, reading or writing particularly difficult then they have a whole two or three years of extra time to get the extra help they need.
A child of 3 or 4 has a brain with more plasticity than a 6 or 7 year old. The Dutch education system takes care of this by allocating these poor kids to vmbo schools: kids destined for a life as a dustman or cleaner when they are merely This might sound bad but at the moment in NL they will receive a minimum wage and cheap social l accommodation that is of a higher standard than in other countries. That said since the great recession, the social safety net and affordable accommodation has changed drastically. Dutch education is perhaps 20 years behind the rest of the world.
That said it does produce confident kids, but their confidence might be decimated when they apply for jobs or enter the work force. As such confidence turns to bitterness and resentfulness. It also produces older kids, as it were. Dutch adults are far less mature than their foreign peers. Their peers have say 4 years more career experience than the Dutch. This is easily seen in the Dutch workplace. I believe the worst outcome for Dutch kids is when they themselves have to become expats in a country whose primary education is two years in advance.
Through no fault of their own they will have to drop a year or two and that will hit their confidence. Private tuition is booming in NL. So, in my last year of primary school, it became clear that I was going to follow the first year […].
So, Arie — how about it?