The International School Hilversum ‘Alberdingk Thijm’ has over 25 years experience of providing an international education to the community in and around Hilversum. We are the only international school in the area.


The learning community
For the past 25 years we have worked to keep the learning for all ages within one school building where everyone knows everyone, creating a strong, supportive community. We believe this provides a familiar, secure, friendly environment for students to learn. 


English as the language for learning
As an International School, our children, from age 4, learn through the language of English, even though for many of them, English is not their mother tongue.


Accredited International Baccalaureate throughout the school
The International School Hilversum ‘Alberdingk Thijm’ is one of only two 3-programme International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools in the Netherlands. What does that mean? It means we provide an accredited IB curriculum throughout the entire school. This includes the IB Primary Years Programme for children from the ages of 4 to 10, the IB Middle Years Programme for students between the ages of 11 and 16, and the IB Diploma Programme for students aged 17 to 19.

The academic reputation of the International School Hilversum is very strong, partly due to 25 years of learning with the International Baccalaureate. The majority of our students move on to higher education and we consistently place students into top universities including Oxford and Cambridge and, as a result, we have children travel from as far away as Amsterdam and Utrecht to learn in our international learning environment.


Bilingual learning
We offer a bilingual stream from age 12 which follows the IB Middle Years Programme and the IB Diploma Programme. This means that Dutch children from our local Hilversum community can join us and participate in IB learning through the English language if they choose and if they meet the qualifications for entry (CITO, primary school recommendation and admission interview).


An affordable international learning environment
Fees to the International School Hilversum are subsidised by the Dutch Government ensuring accessibility for many children.


Mother tongue support
We encourage our children to speak in their mother tongue at home as this actually improves the development of the second or third language. The school library has a dedicated section for Spanish and French and we hope to expand on this for other languages in the future.

Children can also attend language lessons in school in native French, Spanish and Russian after hours.

“We aim to create a learning environment that encourages our students to try, to take risks, to have confidence to accept new challenges.” – Ms. Jetty van Driel, Principal

“Every child is given the chance to excel, in the way that best suits them.”

–        Mr. Glyn Jones, deputy Headteacher

 “We know some of the primary children. It’s a separate part of the school

but everyone can get involved in the school play and the talent show.

 It’s nice that everyone gets on so well.” – Ze-ev (grade 11)

“The school play is a big event for the whole school. All the students are

involved in it in some way; the props, stage-set, costumes, you know.

Everything’s done by the students with supervision from the teachers

so then we’re really proud of what we’ve done.” – Manon (grade 8)