Cito scores I to V explained: how to read your child's Dutch school report

Twice a year, in January and June, your child's Dutch school runs its pupil monitoring tests, and the report comes home with a column of Roman numerals that nobody explains. Cito is the best-known provider, so parents call all of them "the Cito", but IEP and others use the same idea. This is how to read the report, what to ignore, and the one check that tells you whether a low rekenen score is a maths problem or a Dutch problem.

The levels I to V

The level compares your child with all Dutch children in the same groep at the same point in the year. It is a rank, not a mark.

Some schools add a plus or minus, or show I+ for the very top, but the bands are the same. Because it is a rank, a level III is not "60 percent". It means your child is where the middle Dutch child is. For a child who has been in the country a year and takes the test in Dutch, a III in rekenen is a respectable result, whatever it feels like to a parent used to Indian marks.

The older scale A to E

Older reports, and some schools still, use letters, and the bands are not the same, which causes real confusion.

The trap: a C looks like the middle but is below average, while a III is average. If your school reports letters, ask which scale it uses before you react.

Ability score and growth: the numbers that matter

Next to the level there is usually an ability score (vaardigheidsscore), a number on a scale that runs across all the groeps, so it goes up from year to year. Tests from the same provider can be compared on it, and the report often shows expected growth against actual growth, sometimes as a line on a chart.

This is the number to read. A level tells you where your child stands today against the cohort. Growth tells you whether the school year is working.

• Level III with growth above expectation: the child is catching up. Common for children in their first two years in the Netherlands, and good news.
• Level I with flat growth: the child is coasting. Common for children who arrived ahead from India and are not being stretched, and the reason the lead disappears by groep 7. We explain the mechanism in my child was ahead in India and is now average here.
• Level IV or V with flat growth: something needs to change, and the first question is whether it is language.

Is it the maths or the Dutch? A one-evening check

A rekenen test in the Netherlands is mostly context problems written in Dutch. So a low rekenen level can mean the maths is weak, or that the child cannot read the questions, and the report will not tell you which. You can find out yourself.

1. Ask the teacher for the test booklet or, if the school will not release it, for the practice version from the same provider.
2. Sit with your child and translate each wrong question into English, or into Hindi or Punjabi, without giving any hint about the maths.
3. Let the child solve it again.

If most of the wrong answers become right once translated, the maths is intact and the gap is Dutch reading. That is fixed with Dutch reading practice and with learning the vocabulary of maths problems (korting, verhouding, gemiddeld, oppervlakte, hoeveel blijft er over). If the answers stay wrong, there is a real maths gap, and it is usually in the topics that Dutch schools teach differently or earlier: estimation, the number line, the ratio table, measurement and scale, reading data from tables. Our groep-by-groep guide lists which topics fall on which side.

Take the result to the teacher. "She got nine of the twelve right once I translated them" is a conversation that changes what the school does next.

What the school does with these scores

The monitoring results are the main evidence behind the secondary school advice given in groep 8. Reading comprehension and rekenen are weighed most, and the pattern over groep 6, 7 and 8 matters more than any single test. A single bad January in groep 6 is noise. A flat line through groep 7 is not. That is why we tell parents that the doorstroomtoets in groep 8 is the least important test in the sequence and the January test of groep 7 is the most important. The timeline is in Doorstroomtoets 2027.

The scores are also used to decide extra support (a child at IV or V may get remedial time) and, less visibly, enrichment. Dutch schools rarely offer enrichment unprompted. A level I in rekenen with flat growth is the strongest argument you have for asking about a plusklas or extra challenge, and it is worth using.

Three things not to do

Do not compare with India. The tests measure different things in a different language. A child who was 95 percent in Bengaluru and is a III in Almere has not gone backwards.

Do not react to one test. Look at two or three in a row and at growth. Children who moved country often show one flat test and then catch up.

Do not accept "she is doing fine" as the whole story. Fine means the groep's targets are being met. It says nothing about whether a child who could be at level I is being stretched. Ask for the ability score and the growth line, and ask what the school is doing for a child who is ahead.

If you would like a second pair of eyes on a report, send us a photo of it before the free placement demo. Ten minutes with the report next to a short whiteboard test usually tells us which of the three situations above your child is in.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →