At the beginning of May, construction of the Montaigne Lyceum in Ypenburg started. This will be celebrated on 29 June with the placing of the first floor slab by the chairman of the education executive in The Hague, Mr Pierre Heijnen. For this festive occasion all parties involved as well as interested parties have been invited.

The Montaigne Lyceum is the first school in The Netherlands to be realized as a Public Private Partnership. This means that consortia not only tender for the design and construction of the school, but at the same time for its long term maintenance and facility management. The municipality of The Hague and the education foundation SCO Lucas signed the contract in December 2004 with TalentGroep, a consortium consisting of Strukton, ISS Nederland and Imtech.

The new school building will be completed on 1 August 2006 and will then be able to house up to 1200 students. At present, the Montaigne Lyceum is housed in temporary accommodation. The current 420 students are educated according to modern education standards, in which they are encouraged to take as much responsibility as possible for their own learning process. They work in so called ‘learning domains’, large education spaces where students can work individually as well as in small groups.

Besides the learning domains, the Montaigne Lyceum will include a large atelier for visual and creative education, a theatre with 200 seats and studio’s for music and dance, as well as three gyms and a laboratory for up to 80 students. Furthermore there will be ‘working domains’ where all kinds of practical skills can be practiced, such as cookery, welding and bed making.

For further information please contact Mr Piet Post (headmaster Montaigne Lyceum), tel. +31-6-51 56 94 26 or Mr Arnout van Kessel (project manager TalentGroep), tel. +31-30-240 78 24.