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Stadhouderslaan 15
2517 HV Den Haag
The Netherlands
Tel.: +31 (0) 70 2154 800
www.devrijeruimte.org
info(at)devrijeruimte.org
Number of students: 74
Age range of students: 4-18
Year founded: 2007
Contact: Marty Smit
In the classical Greek, ‘school’ means ‘free space’. A school was originally a free space, a safe environment to reflect, together with others, about how the/your world is functioning.
Our school is a democratic school, meaning that it is a mini society where the children have a voice in how their education takes form. This promotes the development of independence, autonomy and responsibility. Teachers/coaches support the development of each child and focus on their passions and talents. Besides the basic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics, the students learn how to make decisions as a group, how to make choices and how to communicate with each other.
In practice, we offer children a lively and safe place filled with development opportunities in various areas and on various levels. We ask the students regularly what they want, when they want it and how they want to achieve their goal(s). There are no compulsory lessons or tests. We have one rule in the school from which other agreements arise: your freedom ends where the boundary of someone else’s begins. Our goal is to create an organisation where people (0-100) can come for guidance in their development.