The community-based school is a collaboration of people and organisations working with children. The aim of community-based schools is to expand the opportunities for child-development, for example in relation to sport or culture.
The underlying idea is to stimulate active participation in society by children, to offer a good structure for their day, to eliminate potential disadvantages, and to enhance their social skills. Community schools work closely with childcare facilities, cultural institutions, sport institutions and libraries, among other organisations.

Community schools were introduced in the Netherlands in the mid-1990s and are mainly found in primary education. In 2009, 1,200 of the 7,000 primary schools in the Netherlands were community schools; this figure is expected to rise to 1,500 by 2011. Secondary education is catching up: of the 1237 locations offering secondary education in the Netherlands in 2009, 350 refer to themselves as community schools.