Montessori College Twente is a public secondary school in Hengelo following Maria Montessori's method: in each lesson students spend part of the time working independently on tasks, and in weekly choice hours they decide what to work on. The school offers mavo, havo and vwo, with more than 1300 students and 150 staff. Teaching is in Dutch; since 2005 the school has held the junior bilingual school licence: in the bilingual havo/atheneum and atheneum classes 50 to 75% of subjects are taught in English in the first three years. In the upper years former bilingual students are offered enhanced English with the Cambridge CAE exams and an optional Cambridge International exam. Mavo and havo have the Wereldklas with an extra hour on the world, and vwo has an enriched programme with University of Twente masterclasses.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Lower Secondary · Montessori · National programme
Languages of instruction
Dutch, English
Languages taught
French, German
About the fees Education is free, and the school pays for textbooks. The voluntary parental contribution for 2026-2027 depends on year, department and subject choice and is agreed annually with the parents' council; not paying does not exclude a student from activities. In addition the bilingual stream asks 85 euros in year 1 and 45 euros in each of years 2 and 3, with trips for the lower bilingual classes at most 400 euros; the Wereldklas asks at most 100 euros in year 1 and 250 euros in year 2. All these amounts are voluntary.
Admissions The school admits students after primary school on the basis of the recommendation: the bilingual atheneum requires an atheneum or gymnasium recommendation, and there is also a havo/atheneum stream; the Wereldklas is for mavo and havo levels. For future students in groep 7-8 there are taster afternoons, a parents' evening and an open evening; the open evening also welcomes students from other schools wishing to enter higher years. Moving from year 4 mavo to year 4 havo requires a mavo diploma, an extra exam subject or an average final mark of 6.8, and a matching subject package. The school says nothing about admitting children from abroad; students with another mother tongue can take a final exam in it (there have been exams in Turkish, Spanish and Russian).
Stages and year groups Grades 1-6. Dutch Montessori secondary school: mavo (4 years), havo (5 years), vwo - atheneum (6 years), ending in the national eindexamen. Bilingual stream (TTO) in havo/atheneum and atheneum classes, years 1-3: taught in English are English, mathematics, nature and technology, physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, music, drama, PE and in year 3 Global Perspectives; the school deliberately does not run a senior bilingual stage. In the upper years: Cambridge CAE and CPE exams in year 4, and an optional Cambridge International exam (CIE) in October of the exam year after preparation in havo years 4-5 and vwo years 5-6. Wereldklas for mavo/havo with preparation for a Cambridge English exam; Goethe exams in German and DELF in French. Optional enriched vwo.
Address Sloetsweg 153, 7556 HM Hengelo
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Lower Secondary · authorised programmeThe Cambridge register names the school as its centre: on the bilingual track senior students prepare for an optional Cambridge International exam in English. The main curriculum is Dutch.
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: Lower Secondary (ages 11-14). Lower Secondary is the middle stage, ages 11 to 14, with the same optional Checkpoint test at the end.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Montessori
The pedagogy of Maria Montessori: a child chooses the activity, works at their own pace with special materials, and mixed-age groups are arranged so that older children teach the younger ones. It is used most often in the nursery and primary stages.
What this means for this school. The name Montessori belongs to nobody: any school may call itself a Montessori school, and there is no single body that checks this. There are associations that train teachers and recognise schools, but membership of them is voluntary, and our entry means exactly that the school describes itself this way. This pedagogy has no leaving certificate, so what to look at is what the school finishes with.
National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results Final exam pass rates 2025-2026: vmbo-tl 93.3%, havo 77%, vwo 86%.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: The school in Hengelo is on a continuous cycle path, with a large bicycle shed and free parking next door. There are several sports halls and a fitness room, a library, a computer room and a canteen; all students and teachers work on iPads. Lessons last 55 minutes, and each week there are also self-chosen independent work hours (keuzewerktijd). The school is an official preparatory school of the ArtEZ conservatory in Enschede. There is no boarding.
Clubs and activities: Debatteam (debate team) · Podcast · Montikoor (school choir) · Schoolbands (school bands) · Musical · Wiskunde Olympiade (maths olympiad) · Lego League
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
The school has 150 staff. In the bilingual stream lessons are taught by teachers trained to CAE or CPE level and by native English speakers. There is a giftedness specialist and support staff; the school publishes the current list of teachers and mentors on its website.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
An anti-bullying coordinator is responsible for the social safety policy; there is an anti-bullying protocol, signal persons, and internal and external confidential advisers whom students and parents can approach about bullying, harassment, discrimination or aggression. The school board's complaints procedure applies, and students can contact the confidential inspector of the Education Inspectorate.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)72 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country
Hengelo, Netherlands · State