Starting a weekend school: the complete step-by-step plan (foundation, venue, tuition, parents and software)

Every week thousands of children in the Netherlands attend classes outside regular school hours: language and culture lessons, homework support, Quran classes. Starting a weekend school — or professionalising an existing one? This step-by-step plan covers every decision.

The ten steps

1. Define your vision and audience: age groups, type of education, expected number of pupils.
2. Choose a legal form: nearly all weekend schools set up a foundation — notary, Chamber of Commerce registration, UBO registration and a business bank account.
3. Arrange board and policy: chair, secretary, treasurer; request conduct certificates (VOG, often free for volunteers) for everyone working with children.
4. Find a venue: rent from a school, community centre or mosque; arrange liability insurance.
5. Recruit teachers: most schools work with volunteers within the tax-free volunteer allowance limits.
6. Set tuition and automate collection: cash envelopes and WhatsApp lists are the biggest leak — use direct debit/iDEAL with reminders linked to the pupil records.
7. Set up pupil administration: enrolment, class lists, attendance per lesson day, homework and progress tracking (e.g. memorisation progress for Quran classes).
8. Communicate through one channel: a multilingual parent app (Dutch, Turkish, Arabic, English) instead of overflowing WhatsApp groups.
9. Take the GDPR seriously: you process children's data — minimise, encrypt, restrict access per role and sign processing agreements.
10. Choose software that connects it all.

One platform instead of loose tools

Aqlemy for weekend schools combines enrolment, classes and attendance, homework and progress, tuition collection via SEPA/iDEAL, a multilingual parent app and the foundation's cashbook in one platform — also fitting for mosques with an education branch. See plans and pricing; the platform is operational within a day.

Free tools for this article: the free membership administration template (Excel) and the free privacy statement (Word). Curious whether the rest of your governance is in order? Take the free board scan — 8 questions, 2 minutes, with the template that solves each open point.