I am going to relocate to the Netherlands next spring and stay there for about a year. I am moving there with my children, and would like to know whether they must attend local school?
Is it possible to have the children at home, and teach them myself? (I would prefer them to learn to read and write in their native language during the year, instead of trying to learn a new language to speak.)
This seems to be rather difficult and only possible in certain cases. For more information on home schooling in the Netherlands, you should have a look at this article by the Netherlands Home Education Association (all quotes below are from this article).
The basic principle is:
In principle, every child that resides in The Netherlands is subject to compulsory school attendance for his education from his fifth birthday on. This means that s/he must:
a. be enrolled at a government approved school;
b. attend this school whenever it is open, barring certain circumstances such as illness.
There is the possibility of home schooling, although it is quite difficult to get permission for it:
[..] exempts parents from registering their child at a school if they object to the orientation (richting) of the education given by all schools located within a reasonable distance from their home (from around 6 km for primary schools to around 20 km for secondary schools, depending on the child’s age).
[..] richting stands for the religious or life-philosophical orientation on which the school has been founded.
[..] However, expressing objections against educational methods or the legal set-up of schools does not qualify for exemption.
So it seems that only if you don't find a school whit an orientation you identify with, then you might be allowed to teach your kids at home. I encourage you to read the whole article, as it has a lot of informations on this topic.
