The tienminutengesprek: what to ask a Dutch teacher, what "het gaat goed" really means, and why there is no homework

In India the parent-teacher meeting is a report on marks and rank, and it can run for as long as the queue allows. In the Netherlands it is the tienminutengesprek, ten minutes by the clock, and "het gaat goed" usually arrives in the first thirty seconds. Parents who walk in without questions walk out knowing nothing they did not already know. This post explains how the meeting and the report work, gives the eight tienminutengesprek questions that get real information out of a Dutch teacher, translates the phrases teachers use, and then deals with the other shock of the first term: the homework that never comes.

How the meeting works

Most basisscholen send a report (rapport) home two or three times a year, typically in November, in February or March, and at the end of June, and offer a ten-minute meeting after the first two. Many schools now open the year with a startgesprek or kennismakingsgesprek in September, sometimes called the "omgekeerd oudergesprek" because the parents do the talking and tell the teacher about the child; use it. From groep 5 or 6 the child is often invited too (a kindgesprek), and in groep 8 the advice meeting in January or February is longer and separate.

Slots are booked through the school app, Parro, Social Schools, Schoudercom or the ParnasSys ouderportaal, and they go within minutes of opening, so switch the notifications on. Both parents may come. The teacher will switch to English if asked, and will keep to the ten minutes because the next family is in the corridor. Two minutes of that is pleasantries. You have eight for questions.

The report and what the letters mean

Groep 1 and 2 reports are observation lists, with smileys or a "developing / achieved" mark against things like counting to 20 and cutting along a line. From groep 3 the report has two kinds of result that look alike and are not.

Method tests (methodetoetsen) are the chapter tests from the school's own maths and language books, marked O, M, V, RV or G: onvoldoende, matig, voldoende, ruim voldoende, goed. Most children score V or better on these because the test follows the chapter just taught. A G here is pleasing and tells you little.

The monitoring tests (Cito LVS or IEP) are national, sat twice a year, and reported as levels I to V or A to E, sometimes as a graph in the parent portal. This is the number that means something, and it is the number that feeds the school advice. How to read it is in Cito scores I to V explained.

Half of every Dutch report is not about subjects at all: werkhouding (attitude to work), zelfstandigheid (independence), samenwerken (working with others), werkverzorging (neatness), concentratie. Indian parents skim this half; Dutch teachers weight it heavily, and in groep 7 and 8 it is written into the school advice alongside the scores. A child with level I rekenen and a "matig" for werkhouding can receive a lower advice than the scores suggest. Read that half of the report as carefully as the other.

What Dutch teachers say, and what they mean

Dutch culture is direct about problems and understated about praise. If a teacher says there is a problem, there is one. If a teacher says things are fine, that means the child is within the normal range and nothing has been flagged. Here is the phrasebook.

There are no ranks in a Dutch primary school. Asking "what is his rank" produces a puzzled silence, and asking "is she the best in the class" is faintly rude. Ask about levels, growth and the next step instead and the same teacher becomes very informative.

Eight questions for ten minutes

Bring them written down, in this order, and skip whichever you already have from the portal.

1. What are the Cito or IEP levels for rekenen, begrijpend lezen, spelling and technisch lezen (DMT and AVI), and what were they last time? The trend matters more than the level. "Welk niveau heeft hij voor rekenen en begrijpend lezen, en wat was het de vorige keer?"
2. Within rekenen, which domain is weakest: getallen, verhoudingen, meten en meetkunde, or verbanden? The portal graph splits it; ask the teacher to show you.
3. Where the reading score is low, is it the Dutch or is it comprehension? For a child who reads well in English, the answer changes everything you do at home.
4. What does the school offer a child who is ahead? Compacten en verrijken, plusklas, Levelwerk, Rekentijgers, the Kangoeroe maths competition. The route is in plusklas and gifted programmes.
5. How is the werkhouding, and what exactly would you like to see change? Get one concrete behaviour, not an adjective.
6. In groep 6 and 7: which advice level are you thinking of, and what would move it up? Teachers have a view long before the letter comes.
7. What is one thing we can do at home? The first answer will be "read Dutch together". Ask for the second thing too.
8. Can you show me the growth graph in the portal? The vaardigheidsscore line over the years is the clearest picture of the child there is, and most parents have never opened it.

Homework: why there is none, and what to do about it

A child in groep 3, 4 or 5 will bring home nothing most weeks, perhaps a reading book and, in groep 4 and 5, the tables to practise. Homework appears in groep 6 and grows through groep 8: a weekly topography test (topo), a talk (spreekbeurt), a book review (boekbespreking), a project (werkstuk), English words, and in groep 8 some real homework to prepare for secondary school, where it arrives in full. The school day itself is short, often 8:30 to 14:15 on a continuous timetable, and the afternoon is for sport, music and playing outside. The idea is that learning happens at school and the day is finished when it ends. It is a design choice, held with conviction, and the teacher who says "laat hem lekker kind zijn" believes it.

For a family from India, where an hour of homework a day starts at Class 3, the empty afternoon is unsettling. Two mistakes follow. One is to recreate the Indian evening, with worksheets until dinner, which sours the child on a school they otherwise enjoy. The other is to accept that nothing at all happens at home, which is when the child who was ahead becomes "prima". The middle path is a short routine, about twenty minutes on four days a week:

• Ten minutes of Dutch reading aloud, the child to you, every day. This is the single highest-return activity in a Dutch primary school and the teacher will tell you the same.
• Ten minutes of maths in English at a stretch level, in the Dutch order of topics so that the school's chapter, when it comes, is familiar. Tables in groep 4 and 5, the redactiesommen method from groep 5, fractions and ratio in 6 and 7.
• Once a week, the words for the current wereldoriëntatie theme, because the topo test and the theme test are the only marked homework and both are vocabulary.
• The spreekbeurt and the werkstuk done properly, because they are graded, they feed the werkhouding half of the report, and they are the one place a child can bring their own interests into school.

A parent in Almere heard "prima" at four meetings across groep 5 and 6, did nothing because she had been told to do nothing, and received a havo advice in groep 7 for a child with a level II rekenen score and a level IV begrijpend lezen. The maths had never been the problem; the reading had, and nobody had said so because nobody had asked. The mechanism is described in my child was ahead in India and is now average here.

The groep 8 advice meeting

The adviesgesprek in January or February of groep 8 is not a tienminutengesprek. It is the meeting where the school gives its provisional advice before the doorstroomtoets, and it is the one meeting to prepare for as if it were an exam of your own. Bring the growth graphs from groep 6 onwards, the werkhouding comments, and, if you disagree, your reasons in writing. What the advice means and how it can move after the test is in VWO, HAVO or VMBO explained.

What we do

Most Netherlands families come to us after a meeting where "het gaat goed" did not match what they see at home. The first thing we do is read the school's numbers with them, Cito levels, domains and the growth line, and separate the maths from the Dutch. Then we run the twenty-minute routine above with the child, in English, at a stretch level, in the school's order of topics, so that the next tienminutengesprek is a conversation about verrijking rather than reassurance. Bring the last report and the portal login to the free demo and we will show you what it says.

Questions parents ask

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