The more than 65,708 primary school students in Amsterdam, like the rest of the Netherlands, are not sure about how they will start after the Christmas holidays. Prime Minister Rutte announced during the last corona press conference that schools must close from one week before the Christmas holidays until 9 January. The central government’s starting point is that education can reopen on January 10, but a final decision will not be made until January 3 at the latest.

Amsterdam primary schools want to avoid ‘panic situations’ at all costs, such as with previous school closures and have already organized distance education for after the holidays last week. The BBO, the association of Amsterdam school boards in primary education, takes into account that schools will remain closed for longer’.

School boards do agree that group 8 students should receive physical education, whatever decision is made. According to the BBO, given their preparation for secondary school and the fact that it is their last primary year, they have a special position.

There are already great concerns to give some examples: especially children who cannot say goodbye to primary school and children who were in seventh grade when schools closed. Secondary schools notice that especially those students have the most difficulty in learning and that they lag behind in social-emotional development.

Parents with a crucial profession

With regard to holiday emergency care, the national guidelines do: then children who have one parent with a crucial profession can also claim emergency care. After all, despite the closure, schools are obliged to make arrangements for vulnerable children whose profession is crucial. That was not the case last week: Amsterdam school boards decided not to arrange emergency care for children of whom one parent works in a sector. This is against the rules and has caused outrage.

“We talk, for example, about nurses, IC doctors and general practitioners. The schools do not take their social responsibility for these workers,” says Marjet Winsemius of the foundation Voor Werkende Ouders. “Parents are really in trouble.”

Gjalt Jellesma van Boink, Interest Association of Parents in Childcare, says that education itself can decide not to abide by the rules.

That will be arranged differently after the Christmas holidays, Lieke Thesingh, chairman of the board of the BBO. “That we didn’t do that last week was because we have control in a mounted and in a short time,” says Thesingh.

However, the schools still have a small hand in hand. If the influx into emergency care is so large and too ambitious, the school can deviate from the national line and realistically start the requirement of two parents in an essential profession.