Obs Houtwijk has been officially designated by the Municipality of The Hague as a school for Newcomers since December 2021.
What are Newcomers?
Newcomers are children who come to the Netherlands directly from abroad and have yet to learn the Dutch language.
You can think of children who come here from a war zone as asylum seekers or children who move with their parents when parents get another job in the Netherlands.
Newcomers are children who have been in the Netherlands for less than a year and have yet to learn the Dutch language.
Here we offer a special program within obs Houtwijk.
The children are in the NI group where they learn to speak and read Dutch, this program lasts 40 weeks. After 40 weeks, a child can graduate from the program to the regular group if he or she has achieved all goals.
At obs Houtwijk we operate two part-time groups one a full-time group with Newcomers. This means that Newcomers (NI) from the part-time variant spend one half-day in Dutch classes and the other half-day in the regular group among their peers. Newcomers in the full-time group are in the Newcomer Group all day. These students complete the entire program after which they move on to a regular group.
Houtwijk is proud to be able to do something for these Newcomers. Children teach each other Dutch, help each other, take responsibility for each other and learn much more about each other’s cultures. We see it as enriching the children and the school.