RELOCATION - AMSTERDAM

[slim22]

Hello everyone,
we are moving to Amsterdam this summer.
DS is 14 months and I would like to enroll him in nursery school for 3 half days/week starting september to allow me to look for a job.
Anyone from Amsterdam with advice??
Are the British school or US schools any good (my experience as a Diplomat's child taught me expat schools usually NO good.).
Do you know if there are any english speaking Montessori nursery schools?
Any advice will be VERY apreciated.
many thanx.

No advice I'm afraid, but wow! what a coincidence - we are moving to The Hague in July!! We have just applied for a place for dd1 (4.5) at The British School in the Netherlands, but as yet don't know where dd2 (2.5) will be going to nursery. I'll keep an eye on this thread with great interest!

hello again,
just to let U know i came accross a very usefull website: expatica.com
it's everything U need to know about relocating to the Netherlands!!! you'll find a lot of good info.
My parents used to live in the Hague, it's a lovely place to raise a family.

Oh dear, I should have remembered expatica.com - I used to work in Amsterdam (although commuted weekly) and saw your thread before.

Best of luck with your move. I'd be tempted to enrol your ds in a Dutch nursery rather than an English-speaking one but you'll get better advice from mums who are out there, I'm sure.

tribpot, many thanx for reply.
We already speak/mix English-arabic-french!!
am worried adding another langage would be overwhelming for 14mths old!!
If DS was older and already speaking ANY of the above, i think I would have opted for dutch nursery. am just worried his speach will be delayed if we add 4th langage.

Slim, we used to live in Amsterdam with our ds's but they both went to local Dutch school/preschool. At 14 months, your ds will be too little for either the British or Int'l school as they don't have nurseries attached. The British one starts at age 3 and the Int'l one possibly even later. There is a bilingual (Eng/Dutch)montessori nursery in Amsterdam called Two Voices which you should be able to get details for by googling it. I never visited but heard mixed reports from people who had used it. They seemed to have very strict ideas about potty training, dummies etc. I have also heard of another bilingual montessori called Bengeltjes but have no info at all about that. The other option is to use a dutch nursery but they tend to have very long waiting lists and if you are used to UK nurseries, you will probably find (at least I did) that the standards of care are not the same.

I second using expatica as a good source of information and when you get to Amsterdam you might want to join this playgroup De Robbeburg which is a great way of meeting people, finding out what is going on etc.

Do you have any ideas about where you might hope to get work as some of the large companies have in-house nurseries or an allocation of places at local nurseries?

Umm, got the address wrong! Scarily, also just had a look at the site and recognised some faces in the photos including mine and ds1. Here is the correct link De Robbeburg

thanx annh.
DH working for ABN, so we are exploring that route.
waiting for a reply.

I'm gonna pick your brain a little bit more if U don't mind.
Re housing, we are currently opting for Amsterdam south around Vondelpark. We live very close to a park in london and DS screams for his (twice) daily stroll in the park.So proximity to park is a must.

We are also considering moving further south to Amstelveen so we may have a house with garden. That would resolve the problem. Just worried i'll turn in one of those desperate housewives!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've lived in central Paris and London for the past 15 years, don't know if I can handle the quiet suburbs.

How far is it from the centre??? (museumplein) is there a lot of traffic???

Hi Slim,

sorry wasn't on yesterday so only saw this now. If you are looking for something close to central London living you are probably better off sticking to the Vondelpark area and it's not an impossibility to find a house or ground-floor flat in that area with garden, but it will be a small garden. If your husband is working at the ABN Head office, it's also very convenient.

Amstelveen is about 10 mins further out on the tram from the ABN offices and it is more suburban but nowhere in Amsterdam equates to cnetral London living so the contrast between Vondelpark/A'veen is not so marked. We lived in A'veen when we were there and enjoyed it.

Really, both parts are very similar, Amsterdam-Zuid (Vondelpark) is more convenient for the British school, A'veen for Int'l school, both have pretty good shopping, restaurants, parks, lots of little open spaces for kids and large populations of expats.

Museumplein is only about 5 mins from what I would consider the centre of Amsterdam, where the main ring canals start and is fairly busy with traffic but again, nothing compared to London.

Any more questions, ask away.

thank U so much Annh!!
There is a good chance I'll come back to ask more questions. I'm very anxious and I have not had a good night's sleep for a week. Hope DS will not be Xtra demanding today.
I am not too worried about settling in Amsterdam am more stressed out by renting out our own flat,organising move, etc...well you know the drill!!
have a good weekend and thanx again.

If you want to ask anything else, you can always CAT me.