← Back to the rankingRijnlands Lyceum Wassenaar
Wassenaar, Netherlands · est. 1936 · State
Illustration · Wassenaar
Rijnlands Lyceum Wassenaar (RLW) is a secondary school in Wassenaar founded in 1936, with the motto 'Free, not rudderless'. More than 1000 students from Wassenaar, Leiden, Den Haag, Voorschoten and the surrounding area attend. Two streams work in one building. The Dutch stream offers havo, atheneum and gymnasium with the eindexamen and a two-year bridge period; the school was one of the first in the country to offer tweetalig onderwijs (TTO): in the lower years about 60% of the programme is in English, in the upper years about 25%, including the subject IB English A: Language and Literature. The gymnasium here is always bilingual, with Latin and Ancient Greek. Since 2019 the school has hosted the International School Wassenaar (ISW), an IB World School since 2023: the MYP and the Diploma Programme, with all subjects except Dutch taught in English. Students of both streams share the building, teachers, clubs and trips; a havo 5 student can move into the Diploma Programme. The school also offers Chinese from year 2, the Deutsches Sprachdiplom and DELF language diplomas, the Kunstklas programme with the Royal Academy of Art in Den Haag and university programmes for strong students.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $9 490–10 845 a year
8 400–9 600 EUR
Programmes
IB · MYP, DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
Dutch, English
Languages taught
French, German, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Spanish
Class size
in the upper years each mentor guides a group of no more than 15 students
Registration fee
≈ $339
300 EUR
About the fees International stream ISW for 2026-2027: MYP 1-5 8400 EUR per year, DP 1-2 9600 EUR per year; fees are paid annually in advance or in three instalments. The government covers about half of ISW's costs, parents' fees cover the rest and are not a voluntary contribution. The Dutch stream is free: the school asks for a voluntary parental contribution, with a guideline amount of 230 EUR, or 100 or 360 EUR by choice; non-payment does not affect admission, lessons, activities or exams. There is also a separate voluntary contribution for programme-specific trips and projects.
Admissions The international stream ISW admits children from families who have come from abroad and are part of the mobile international community, as well as Dutch children who have spent at least two years in a school abroad immediately before admission. When places are limited, priority goes to siblings of current students and children of new teaching staff, then to children coming directly from abroad, then to those transferring from another international school in the Netherlands. Admission is rolling, applications are online, and the 300 EUR application fee is non-refundable. If there are concerns about readiness for the MYP or DP, the school organises a placement test and interview. There are limits on special educational needs: the school may be unable to cater, for example, for students who need complex medical care or who refuse to go to school. For the Dutch stream, year 1 registration requires a primary school recommendation of havo, havo/vwo or vwo during the regional registration period in March; there is no lottery and everyone registered by 31 March gets a place. Entry to higher years is decided individually on grades and reports from the previous school. Students from abroad or with another home language are tested on their Dutch when entering the Dutch stream.
Stages and year groups Dutch stream: havo (5 years), atheneum and gymnasium (6 years, vwo) with the national eindexamen; a two-year bridge period (Dutch or bilingual havo/atheneum, bilingual gymnasium). Bilingual TTO in the lower (Junior TTO) and upper (Senior TTO) years, with the subject IB English A: Language and Literature and a Senior TTO certificate; from 2025-2026 TTO is also open to havo. Language diplomas: Deutsches Sprachdiplom and DELF. International School Wassenaar: the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP 1-5) and the IB Diploma Programme (DP 1-2, ages 16-19), all subjects in English, Dutch as a subject. DP options include English and Dutch Language and Literature, Dutch, English, French and German B, French or Spanish ab initio online through Pamoja for an extra fee, Business Management, Economics, History, Environmental Systems and Societies, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, two mathematics courses and Visual Arts.
Address Backershagenlaan 5, 2243 AB Wassenaar
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · MYP, DP · authorised programmePASCH · takes part in the programmeThe school is listed in the IB register and runs the Middle Years and Diploma programmes. The IB is run by International School Wassenaar in the lyceum building; a Dutch school with a bilingual track runs alongside. The school is part of the PASCH network.
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
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →PASCHSchools: Partners for the Future, an initiative of the German foreign ministry
More than two thousand schools in about 120 countries. A school cannot apply for itself: participants are chosen by German agencies in agreement with the embassy. Very different schools sit under one mark - full German schools abroad, and ordinary national schools that simply teach German well.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to a German support programme. By itself the mark means neither a German curriculum nor the right to award a German certificate: of the two thousand PASCH schools, about seventeen hundred hold no such right. Look for a ZfA status next to it - that is the one that is about this. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 The Dutch havo stream had a 100% pass rate in the 2024-2025 school year. The school does not publish IB Diploma average scores.
Where leavers go: King's College London
The school cites an ISW graduate of 2025 who scored 40 IB points and won a place at King's College London; it does not publish a full list of universities. Careers guidance at ISW is led by a counsellor using the Morrisby platform, and in the Dutch stream by the school's study choice counsellor.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Clubs and activities: First Lego League · FIRST Tech Challenge - Robotics · Flag Football · Volleyball · Cricket · Chess · School Newspaper · Debating · Yearbook · Band · Orchestra · Singing Group · Musical · MUN · Book club · Language Club · Crafting · Board game club
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 sizein the key facts above
The team has more than 130 staff, including a considerable number of native English speakers; TTO lessons are taught by native or near-native speakers. Teachers are subject experts, and most also serve as class mentors. The school does not publish ISW teacher qualifications or class sizes.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
✓CCTV
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The building and grounds are covered by security cameras. There is an anti-bullying protocol with a coordinator, the M.A.S.T. code of conduct drawn up by the student council, and a school safety covenant with the municipality, police and public prosecutor. Every class has a mentor with weekly lessons; a support team with coordinators, remedial educationalists, a youth nurse and a social worker meets every six weeks. There are internal confidential advisers in Dutch and English and an external confidential adviser. Pedagogical caretakers keep order during breaks.
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%)88 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 data80 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