Sanne de Vries

Educational Psychologist & CITO Specialist

Sanne de Vries holds an MSc in Pedagogical Sciences from Universiteit Utrecht, where her thesis examined the predictive validity of CITO Eindtoets scores across different socio-economic groups in the Utrecht province — a finding that was cited in a 2022 Onderwijsinspectie report on assessment fairness. She spent eight years working as an orthopedagogue at a VMBO-T/HAVO school in Utrecht, designing personalised learning plans for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia, and running biannual workshops for parents on interpreting CITO toets reports and the doorstroom (school transition) process. Her specialty areas include CITO Eindtoets preparation for students in Groups 7 and 8 of basisschool, navigating the HAVO/VWO recommendation process, supporting students with learning differences through centrale examens, and designing spaced-practice revision systems for secondary students in the VO. She is a gecertificeerd CITO-toetsspecialist and contributed to national guidelines on assessment accommodations for students with dyslexia published by the Expertisepunt Dyslexie, where she served as an associate researcher from 2021 to 2023. Sanne's writing combines the Dutch NRO (Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek) evidence base with practical family guidance that she has honed through hundreds of oudergesprekken (parent meetings) over her career. Her pedagogy conviction: children in the Netherlands are streamed too early and too rigidly — her role as an orthopedagogue was always to expand the ceiling of what a child was thought capable of, not to confirm existing expectations. Her most recent project is a parent-facing guide distributed through twelve basisscholen in Utrecht and Gelderland, combining interleaved practice exercises with accessible explanations of how the CITO group advisement process works in practice — what families can realistically do to prepare their children without adding to performance anxiety.