Amsterdam: AICS Community School

Norah and Ben are attending an International School in a southeast suburb of Amsterdam called the Amsterdam International Community School. This is a brand new campus that just opened this fall, so Norah and Ben are part of the first group of students ever to attend here. Interestingly, the campus is in a temporary location. They intend to move and merge this school into a larger school campus in the next ten years. Because of this, the school director shared with us that the school is not only fully sustainable but completely reusable. It will literally be dismantled in the future and reassembled in its permanent location in the future.

The focus of the curriculum seems to be a sort of Montessori-Global Fusion. The teaching is in English and is play and team based. Both kids are taking Dutch lessons as part of the curriculum. The families who attend are from all over the world, most seem to be here for the long term, and few are American.

 Dutch schools have two big advantages over US school, according to the kids. The first is that while the regular school schedule is slightly longer than a US school day, Wednesday is only a half day. We are really excited to have big Amsterdam city adventures with our Wednesday afternoons. The second bonus is that the Dutch don’t believe in homework, like at all, until high school. This takes a little pressure off and, with our commute being longer than anticipated, it is really nice to not get home and have schoolwork hanging over us.

A look in Ben’s classroom.

The other striking quality of school here, to me, is the absence school security and in particular, a lack of security procedures related directly or indirectly to guns. The kid’s school has all the doors and windows flung open all day. The requirement in the afternoon is that I meet the kids at their classroom so literally dozens of parents come walking in from around 3 pm on and linger in the hallways and cafeteria. Honestly, it feels to me how a school should feel and makes the backwards policies in the US seem even more ludicrous.

Reward for a successful first week!