Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

European integration and globalization are a reality. The vmbo location is a completely
separate organization and does not use teachers from their tvwo location in the
tvmbo.
CS Calvijn Groenehart, Barendrecht
CS Calvijn implements tvmbo via lessons in English in a number of regular classes:
PE, mathematics, history, biology, music and an international class. The first year has
about 40% of their lessons in English and, due to numbers, is a mixed tvmbo/thavo
class. The school took a year to prepare teachers in English language and CLIL methodology
before opening their tvmbo stream in 2010-2011. There is already some
cross-curricular cooperation between teachers, where the English teachers support subject
learning in their lessons. Ten teachers are preparing for the Cambridge Advanced
Certificate in English.
Farel College, Ridderkerk
Farel College in Ridderkerk decided three years ago to start what they call a tmavo
stream. The school wanted to take time to organize and think about it and now has
mixed mavo/havo classes in years 1 and 2. The school wants to attract more ‘mavo
children’ to the bilingual stream and to give mavo students a chance and challenge –
‘We are a school that innovates’ said the TTO coordinator. Marketing and student
numbers also played a role in the decision to start a tvmbo stream. However, most students
in the bilingual stream at the moment achieve havo level and move into the (nonbilingual)
havo stream. Like the Lorentz Lyceum below, Farel College has a blooming
tvwo department which is already ten years old, and uses teachers – whose English is
already good and who already taught at mavo level – to teach in the tmavo/havo
classes. The children have one extra hour of English per week. Farel College implements
tvmbo via lessons in English in the tmavo class. They teach PE, geography, history,
arts, and biology in English and some EIO lessons. Between the summer holidays
and the autumn break in October, the students are allowed to use some Dutch, but after
the fall holiday, they must only use English. In the first year they go to Canterbury for
two days and in the second year they go to a kids club in the UK for 5 days
Lorentz Lyceum, Arnhem
Lorentz Lyceum is the school with perhaps the most experience of tvmbo in the project,
although they still call their stream versterkt taalonderwijs (VTO) and are not
planning, at the moment to call their stream a tvmbo. The school started VTO in 2005.
The school’s most important ambition for the VTO is the idea that students are becoming
global citizens who will need English in the future. The school uses teachers who
62