The desired change was for teachers to understand the importance of promoting tpo/vvto. The need was to expand and deepen the quality of English education. The second challenge was for the staff, who often do not feel skilled enough to be able to offer excellent English education in the classroom. It concerns their own skills. Teachers can better use their own skills during lessons, during parent interviews and international activities. The third aim of the training was to provide teachers with more tools and to expand their didactic and pedagogical activities, so that they are better able to offer structurated English education at a high level. The aim was to integrate English education within the current IPC curriculum by means of CLIL. The activities within the themes of IPC can be broadened by adding the English language to better align English education with the perception of the students. The above-mentioned changes will create enthusiasm, intrinsically motivated and language-proficient teachers. In addition, there will be more embedding within the current school curriculum.
The Prinseschool is a public primary school in the municipality of Enschede with three locations spread across the city. In total, more than 900 students attend this school. Unfortunately, we have a waiting list for admission. The educational staff consists of approximately 65 people. For more than 25 years, our school has been offering English-language education (vvto) from group 1 onwards, as a learning area and as a language of learning (CLIL). This is the basis for both internationalisation and global citizenship. The reason for this is to teach students better communication skills, with the result that they can offer better opportunities in the increasingly international Dutch labour market. Our teachers are all moderately to excellently well trained and proficient in the English language. This is a prerequisite for employment, because English is one of the pillars of our school, next to e.g. IPC. The project 'Professionalisation teachers at Prinseschool' has aimed to further professionalise active and passive English language proficiency.