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On Wednesday, 9 April 2025, the tenth edition of the Met Alle Respect! education conference will take place. The conference is an initiative of the School & Safety Foundation, with the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. As with the previous two editions, this will be a fully hybrid event.
Healthy School wants all schools to pay attention to healthy living, learning and development. To help children and young people grow up healthy and resilient, it is important that all pupils and students learn about a healthy lifestyle in a structured, school-wide way. This is the main objective of Healthy School’s new Multi-Year Plan 2025-2028, ‘Doing What Works’.
A pilot has been launched in Bergen op Zoom featuring the Starttrommel, a new intervention for four-year-olds starting primary school. When children are 3 years and 7 months old and visit the child health clinic, their parents or guardians receive a Starttrommel. This box contains valuable information for a healthy start at primary school, such as tips for a healthy snack and lunchbox. It also includes an accompanying letter with a QR code linking to the brochure ‘Trommel zonder Rommel’.
Schools can request a free guest lesson about oil and fat, during which students get to work on making margarine and take part in a fun quiz.
Many LGBTQI+ young people drink more alcohol than their heterosexual cisgender peers. As a result, they face an increased risk of cancer and other mental and physical health problems. To open up the conversation about alcohol within this group, the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF Kankerbestrijding) is launching a project with COC, the Trimbos Institute and Rutgers. The aim: to promote a healthier lifestyle. KWF director Dorine Manson: “We are genuinely concerned.”
Every student deserves a positive, valuable educational experience. School attendance is fundamental to this. That is why Ingrado, the Netherlands Youth Institute and the Appropriate Education Support Centre are organising the Dutch School Attendance Congress on 25 and 26 September 2025. The organisers are still looking for session leaders with thought-provoking contributions that offer new insights, promote collaboration and encourage concrete action.
Schools are very interested in Jong Leren Eten’s Lekker naar buiten! incentive scheme. This is evident from the evaluation of the fifth round by the RIVM. The main reason for participating is that it enables schools to pay attention to food and nature.
More and more schools are providing food education or greening their schoolyards. A study by the Louis Bolk Institute, in collaboration with Jong Leren Eten, IVN and JOGG, examined how primary schools view combining food education with greening the schoolyard, for example by creating a vegetable garden. Successful implementation appears to depend on vision, support and integration into the curriculum.
In Australia, a ban on social media use for children under 16 is now a fact. In Europe, a number of countries are looking with interest at similar measures. And in the Netherlands too, voices are calling for a social media ban for young users. Geert van der Veen of Netwerk Mediawijsheid describes the situation and gives experts a voice.
The Akkerbouw Avonturen project brings primary school pupils closer to the fields and shows them how food grows, from soil to plate. Through professional teaching materials and educational farm visits, children gain awareness of sustainably produced food and the important role played by the arable farming sector in this process.
Children learn a great deal at school. But as a parent, of course, you’re never too old to learn either. That’s why Ouders & Onderwijs has put together 10 fun and useful facts about education.
The end of the year is approaching again. This also means fireworks will be set off. Fireworks are beautiful, but unfortunately many people are injured by fireworks every year. Many of the victims are children and bystanders. To make children aware of the dangers, VeiligheidNL has been offering the free 4vuurwerkveilig educational package for children in grades 7 and 8 since 2015.
Vegetable garden coach and garden designer Marijke Starke has already helped many schools in Brabant, Limburg and Overijssel get started with a school garden. Her favourite time to sit down with a school: autumn and early winter. This means that some perennial plants and shrubs can be planted straight away.
Sleep deprivation among young people is a growing problem with major consequences for their concentration, academic performance, and overall well-being. With support from a grant from the Brain Foundation, this unique approach to improving young people’s sleep can be continued. The Kick-Off of Charge Your Brainzzz 3.0 will take place on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Recently, State Secretary Karremans called on parents to confiscate and throw away their children’s vaping products. The appeal followed reports that at least fourteen children had been admitted to hospital over the past year as a result of vaping. Schools can also play their part in combating vaping, argue Simone Onrust and Claire de Nerée tot Babberich of the Trimbos Institute in the blog below.
Suzanne van Ginneken of Speelnatuur knows everything about green and inclusive schoolyards. She discusses the topic in an interview with Stedebouw & Architectuur.
Motor Skills Week took place from 11 to 14 November. During the week, there were two webinars of interest to education professionals. The webinars are now available to watch again.
Schools need to do more to prevent long-term dropout from education. Better registration of absences should help with this. This is stated in the bill on Reducing School Absenteeism, which State Secretary for Education Mariëlle Paul has sent to the House of Representatives.
Bloemenbureau Holland, together with GreenBee Foundation, an organization committed to bringing more greenery into classrooms, is launching an experiment into the effect of plants in the classroom on pupils’ well-being and development. During the experiment, primary school classes throughout the Netherlands will receive a lesson on plants and plant care. Each child will receive their own plant and learn how to care for it themselves.
December 2 is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. As a teacher, how do you talk to a group of children and young people about the history of slavery or the colonial past? The Netherlands Youth Institute has compiled some guidance.
Would you like to teach children how food grows in a challenging and innovative way? And could your schoolyard use a little more greenery? Then an IVN Food Forest Garden could be just right for your school. Children discover edible plants using all their senses. From snacking on fresh blackberries to enjoying the fresh scent of mint. This school year, the Municipality of Zwolle and IVN Overijssel are offering one primary school a free Food Forest Garden.
Would you like to get started with school gardening, or are you considering it? Then the Masterclass Getting Started with School Gardening by the School Gardens Alliance is just right for you. Participation is free, and you will learn everything about the why, how and what of school gardening.
Fietsersbond and Wandelnet are joining forces. Together with JOGG and the Knowledge Centre for Sport & Exercise, they are working on a movement-friendly school environment. JOGG coordinators, community sports coaches, policy officers, schools and others involved in this work can find everything they need on the website beweegvriendelijkeschoolomgeving.nl: useful tools, inspiring success stories and extensive information. This enables them to quickly take the first steps together towards a safe and movement-friendly school environment.
Among children, we see that after their fourth birthday they increasingly start eating less healthily. Teenagers even eat and drink the least healthily compared with all other age groups. This is once again shown by two recent studies. The Netherlands Nutrition Centre is therefore asking how we can maintain this healthy start.
The National School Breakfast has received the ‘Well Described’ recognition from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). This recognition highlights the quality and accessibility of the initiative, which is committed to promoting healthy breakfast habits among primary school children. The independent assessment by practical assessors from various health organisations underlines the importance of the intervention and its contribution to the health of young children.
Half of primary and secondary school students (almost) never defecate in school toilets. They would rather hold it in because they find the toilets too dirty or lack the necessary privacy. Nearly half of school students experience complaints as a result of this ‘withholding behavior’ (43%). For one in six of these students, the complaints are so severe that they have to visit a doctor. This is shown by research conducted by the Maag Lever Darm Stichting (MLDS).
On Monday, 18 November, the Week Against Child Abuse begins. Education professionals play an important role in recognising and supporting children in an unsafe home situation. They can establish contact and stay in contact with the child. But how do you do this in practice? The webinar ‘Don’t Let Me Go’ on 20 November explores this in greater depth and is intended for education professionals in primary education and the lower years of secondary education.
A visit to an educational farm, a guest lesson about a healthy lunch, a visit to the market: the pupils of Christian Primary School de Lichtboei in Oostwold, Groningen, became acquainted with healthy food in all kinds of ways. To conclude these thematic weeks, a Food Festival was organised. Several parents helped the teachers organise it. What exactly was done and what went on behind the scenes? Jong Leren Eten has put it all together.
From 11 to 14 November, the fifth edition of Motor Skills Week will take place. On this occasion, Vincent van der Veen of IVN Nature Education wrote the blog below about the importance of outdoor activity in nature for children's motor skills and health.
The fact that creating and maintaining a school garden is not something you can simply do on the side is something Charlotte Verhoeve, owner of De Moestuin Juf and Tuinzaam, knows better than anyone. In her nine-year career as a vegetable garden coach in the Zeist and Utrecht area, she regularly saw things go wrong in school gardens. On the Alliantie Schooltuinen website, Charlotte shares the lessons she and schools have learned, so that you can take a different approach.