# Amsterdam school need not move pupil, 13, up to havo

> A judge in an interim ruling has said the Fons Vitae Lyceum in Amsterdam-Zuid does not have to promote a 13-year-old first-year pupil to 2 havo, the second year of a five-year secondary school stream. His mother had taken the school to court.

Society · published 2026-10-22 02:00 · https://nlnow.nl/a/court-backs-amsterdam-school-over-refusal-to-move-pupil-up/

The school need not let the boy move up to 2 havo, the judge ruled, after he ended the year with four insufficient grades. The school has no vmbo department, so he has to leave. His mother is discussing an appeal with her lawyer and says she is "deeply disappointed" (diep teleurgesteld).

The school considers a lower level more suitable for the boy.

The mother argued that the school had not given her son enough help with his language deficit. She also said he had a mentally hard year: he was bullied and his grandmother ended up in intensive care.

The judge said the school took into account not only his grades but also his work pace and understanding of the material. The judge ruled that he had been given enough support for his language deficit.

According to the judge, the decision on promotion lies with the school. A judge can only intervene if the decision is careless, clearly incorrect or incomprehensible, and the judge found that was not the case here.

On the mother's other points, the judge found that the school acted adequately when the boy was bullied. A school can take only limited account of personal circumstances such as the grandmother's illness, the judge said. The boy was also offered several resits, which is not usual in the first school year.

## Background

- **havo (hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs)**: Havo is one of the Dutch secondary school tracks, short for higher general secondary education, and it is a five-year course. Pupils move up year by year, from 1 havo to 5 havo, and the track prepares them for hbo (university of applied sciences) education.

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