The 8+ class is an initiative of many primary schools in Haarlem. In February 2011 different primary school mentioned that they had pupils within their school that lacked language skills. These pupils had an IQ to go to a certain level of secondary school but based on the scores of spelling/ comprehensive reading/ vocabulary they are not able to go to this type of school.

We decided to start the 8+ class.

The only question left was where to organize this class. We could start this class in a secondary school or within a primary school. We chose for the last option. The advantage of this option is that it is still possible for pupils to repeat a class in secondary school, next to that they still have to make a choice for the secondary school.