29 August 2012

Our planned departure to Holland is drawing near. It is time to make plans regarding the education of our children.

In England we started to home educate our children. We are very content teaching the children ourselves. Being able to choose what, when and how they learn is a great privilege.

The children have an abundance of subjects to study. They not only learn about the history and culture of Holland and England, but also about world history and cultures around the world. The company we purchase most of our curriculum from, Sonlight, is very mission orientated.

The children also enjoy being taught at home. They like it that they learn a lot in a relative short time, and they appreciate the time spent together as a family.

Furthermore we do not want to put the children through all too many changes in their schooling. In Holland we will be living in several places and do not exactly know when we will go to the mission field. Home education provides us with stability and continuity, which is much desired. We expect to teach the children ourselves on the mission field also, making the transition less impacting when education stays the same.

However, laws and regulations in the Netherlands regarding the education of children are quite different from England’s rules. In Holland children are subject to compulsory school attendance, with only a few exceptions. The only exception that can apply to us is making a formal notice of objection to the orientation of the schools within reasonable distance of the home. A Compulsory Education Officer (CEO) checks whether the exception is lawful. Depending on the CEO and the local municipality home education can be made very hard. If you would like to read more about this, you can visit the website of the Dutch Home Education Association. Your prayers concerning the safeguarding of the home education of our children in Holland is much appreciated.