Schools and teachers in the Netherlands have ample room for making own curricular choices. This is a long standing tradition. However, a recent curriculum policy trend is a slight but clear pendulum swing into the direction of more prescription considering the 'what' of compulsory education. This trend is exemplified by an emphasis on outcomes-based education, with a particular focus on the basics. Schools are hold accountable for realizing outcomes, especially regarding the basics. At the same time though schools will keep much space for making site-specific choices in developing, choosing and implementing outcomes-based approaches, for example in terms of differentiated teaching. From a curricular perspective, these two policy trends - outcomes-based compulsory education (prompted by more prescription) along with space for school-based curriculum development initiatives (with, at the heart, teacher professionalism) - have implications for teaching, learning and assessment at the classroom level as well as for facilitating and supporting teachers in making curricular decisions. The latter refers to the role of both school leadership and support agencies (cf. curriculum institutes, assessment agencies, textbook publishers, teacher education institutes). In this contribution to the symposium these implications will be analyzed based on curriculum policy and curriculum research documents.