20 years of Kickstart School - what a milestone!
Many courses, many buildings, many happy students, teachers and staff! Our founder and owner, Josien Deknatel, wrote a few words reflecting on the past 20 years:
Looking back on 20 years of Kickstart School I can only state that I have enjoyed -nearly- every minute of it. The transition of a one-man band into a middle-sized language school has been a challenging, definitely educational, but also satisfying experience for me.
At Kickstart we are all about learning and we have learnt an awful lot while teaching you. We need to adapt constantly; that keeps us on our toes. Technology has become more prominent; the days of cassettes, CD’s and MP3 files are long gone! We moved on to our learning platform KickstartNet many years ago, which now needs an overhaul too. New developments such as gamification are there, not to be ignored. We will embrace these changes as we have been doing these last 20 years.
Over the years Kickstart School has managed to keep close ties with its teachers and administrative staff. We have always managed to recruit dedicated staff – often from our own student population- who take pride in their work.
For our teachers, teaching is their way of life! They simply love teaching. No matter how important technology has become, the personal approach of a dedicated teacher pointing you into the right direction is invaluable.
The key elements, which make teaching so rewarding, are the exchange of experiences and the bonding within a group. Observing your students discovering the Netherlands, getting the chance to look at your own country through their eyes and feeling their sense of amazement, all make you smile.
The group dynamics make learning a positive experience. It helps the students to achieve their goals effectively. Even during the pandemic, the group courses have been doing well. Learning a language in a group has not only been a soothing Corona hobby, like knitting, growing plants or long walks, but has given our students the opportunity to connect with their fellow students and improve their language skills.
It is hard to reflect on a period of time, such as the past 20 years, when you are still in the thick of it. I feel great enthusiasm to keep improving the quality of the courses at Kickstart, to meet students face2face again once this is possible and of course our online courses are here to stay.
Every era presents its own challenges, and we rise to them with the same energy we started out with.
I am very thankful that we managed to survive all the adverse circumstances and that we can look to the future with optimism. I feel that Kickstart is very much alive and kicking!
We will celebrate this anniversary with several competitions in which nice prizes can be won. Stay tuned here and on social media to find out more!