Basisschool Grades Are NOT Out of 10: The Dutch Primary School Rating System Explained

If you search "Dutch grading system" online, every result tells you the exact same thing: the Netherlands uses a 1-to-10 scale.

That's completely true — for secondary school and university.

But your child's basisschool (primary school) report card uses a completely different system, and almost no English-language resource explains it.

Two Different Systems, One Country

The Netherlands actually has two grading systems running in parallel:

Level	System	Example
Basisschool (age 4-12)	Letter/word ratings	V, G, RV, O, or Voldoende, Goed
Secondary & university (age 12+)	Numerical 1-10	6.5, 7, 8.3

According to Wikipedia's page on academic grading in the Netherlands, at all levels of education some subjects may be graded with the marks "insufficient" (O, or onvoldoende), "pass" (V, or voldoende), and in some cases "good" (G, or goed). On report cards, these are mostly shown as letters rather than numbers.

What the Letters Mean

On a professional translator forum (ProZ.com), a certified translator posted asking what the abbreviations RV, G, V, and T mean on a Dutch school report card — proving that even language professionals find this confusing.

Here's the system most basisscholen actually use:

Dutch	Abbreviation	English	What It Means
Zwak	Z	Weak	Significantly below age-level expectations
Onvoldoende	O	Insufficient	Below expected level
Matig	M	Fair	Below expectations, area for growth
Twijfelachtig	T	Uncertain/Doubtful	Borderline — could go either way
Voldoende	V	Sufficient	Meets expectations — this is the normal level
Ruim voldoende	RV	More than sufficient	Above expectations
Goed	G	Good	Well above expectations, excellent

Important: Not every school uses the same set. Some use a 5-point scale (Zwak through Goed), others use letter abbreviations (O, V, G, RV, T), and some use circles, stars, or checkboxes. The underlying meaning is the same: Voldoende is the expected baseline.

Why This Confuses Expat Parents

When you Google "Dutch grades," you find the 1-to-10 scale everywhere — on university websites, on Nuffic, on Wikipedia.

Expat parents from countries with letter grades (USA, UK, India) tend to inherently convert Dutch scores into percentages using their home system.

But the basisschool system isn't numerical at all. There's no "6 out of 10." There's no percentage.

Your child's teacher is making an observational assessment of where your child is compared to age-level expectations — and writing it as a word or letter.

If your child's report says Voldoende across the board, they're exactly where they should be.

Stars, Circles, and Other Formats

Many basisscholen present these same ratings visually instead of with letters:

• Stars — 1 to 5 stars, where 3 stars = Voldoende
• Filled circles — partially or fully filled to show level
• Color coding — green (Goed/RV), orange (Voldoende), red (Matig/Zwak)
• Checkboxes — tick in the column that applies

The format varies by school, but the underlying scale is the same letter-based system described above.

These Are Not Test Scores

Unlike the 1-10 grades in secondary school (which come from tests and exams), basisschool ratings on report cards are purely teacher observations.

They reflect how your child is developing in areas like concentration, cooperation, reading, and math — not how they scored on a specific test.

Dutch primary schools do administer standardized tests (like the CITO toets in Groep 3-8) to track progress, but "the pupils can't pass or fail these tests and there are no direct consequences based on the outcome of the tests alone."

Still Confused? Translate Your Report

The biggest challenge isn't the ratings — it's reading the teacher comments that explain them. Those are in Dutch, and Google Translate can't handle educational terms like "Kosmische Vorming" or "Technisch Lezen."

ReportKaart translates your child's entire basisschool report into clear English — ratings, comments, and all, so you never miss another detail again.