Rijnlands Lyceum Oegstgeest

GENERAL - Characteristics

RLO - Our Educational Model

Preparing for the Future: Changes in the Organisation of Education
Insight into the field of learning and teaching demands a teaching organisation that displays more flexibility. Furthermore, the cutbacks announced by Balkenende’s government and the impending changes in funding call for a more efficient organisation of the education. For this reason, Het Rijnlands Lyceum Oegstgeest is focusing on an adjustment to/revision of the teaching model.

Background and Main Features of the Change
Changes in teaching in the recent past (introduction of the basic curriculum and second phase) have resulted mostly in a change in the curricula, not in the policy of learning and teaching. The educational organisation model that was developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has, for the most part, remained the same.

This school model was created for group tuition, in which the most important source of knowledge is the (highly educated) teacher, and for formal lecturing and particularly class-teaching. Teaching aids or other sources of information that the students could use independently to acquire knowledge and skills simply did not exist. Since then, that situation has changed an awful lot, and it is now clear that the contact and the cooperation between the teacher and the student form the most important part of the education at a school such as ours. We are trying to find therefore an adjustment to the model in which there is more room for innovative teaching methods and more flexibility with respect to the various ways of learning.

Changes in Insight into the Field of Learning
Roughly 95% of what we know about the working of the human brain and about learning processes have been discovered in the last ten years. Although it is the least imperative, in our opinion this reason is the most important to think about a new teaching model. We have already been working on this for some time and have formulated a vision on learning that serves as the guiding principle for our further development. With that vision in mind, we have formulated the principles for a new teaching model. The most important basic principles are:

        ·         We divide the school-bound teaching time into lesson time and flexitime (ratio 3:1). During the lesson time the accent is on the contact between the teacher and the students in groups. Flexitime is for other forms of teaching time such as individual coaching, lectures, independent work, testing and so on.
·         With the intention of reducing the number of subjects and tests per period for the students, we want a schedule with four periods.
·         The unit of time that we want to use can be converted directly into the 50-minute model and the lesson table remains unchanged.

· The teaching day must become more balanced as regards composition and length.

We are currently investigating the feasibility of a 75-minute schedule, which will allow far more variety in teaching methods during the

lessons. Also, we think that the most important benefits are: fewer starts during the day for both students and teachers, few lesson

changes, a calmer school, and a more compact teaching day.

A major objective is to make a better link in the lower school to the methods of working in primary education. That can be done by

means of fewer subjects per period and by a greater role for the mentor as a coach. In the senior forms, we want to prepare them

gradually for an increasing responsibility for their own learning process, because that is a significant factor for success in higher

education (HBO and university). The majority of our students go on to higher education.

Changes in the Rules and Regulations

During the next two years the basic curriculum will be drastically updated, and there are going to be very many adjustments to the

second phase. But prior to that, and in anticipation of those developments, we want to have our teaching model adapted before we

have to start working on syllabus changes.

Changes in Funding

In the current economic and political climate, there is some talk of cutbacks and huge financial risks for schools. The economic climate

hits us all the harder, as it also results in a drop in the number of students in the international department. Many schools try to find a

way out by cutting back on lesson time per subject, by forming larger groups or limiting choices, but we feel that we could work more

efficiently with a model in which not all school-bound teaching time is spent in the form of group tuition. We are aiming for a decrease,

by natural wastage, of 10% in the formation.

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