Primary schools

Hello cllbay,

Welcome to Expat-Blog.

Feel free to come across the Schools and studies in Brussels forum as well.

I wish all the best.

David

If you are just starting your school search, you are unfortunately 8 months late, French schools started and in some cases finished enrolments in September 2012 for September 2013. You are now left with basically whatever is left which won't be very much at all in east Brussels, especially if you're trying for 2 places in the same school. If you rule out all communals or Catholics (some parents unfortunately do, much to my dismay), you will cut the odds even further, by roughly 50%. You should only consider putting a child down a year if really young in a year and only after consultation with schools which have places. As for a 3 year old, put him down a year with 2 year olds, what do you think would be the effect of learning French in those circumstances? Your son needs to hear fluent French and few 2 year olds will have it! Put your children in P2 and M2 (assume 4 in August). As for choosing a school based on someone else's experience 30??? years ago, is that wise?

Yes, I realize we are late.  Unfortunately, the request for us to relocate only came this week so time is not on our side.  Nonetheless, we will need to find a suitable arrangement at least for the older one to start in September with an eye on applying to a better school for next year.  So, I'd like recommendations for which schools to look at that may be acceptable for this coming year as well as which ones would be good to apply to for the following year. 

Regarding which years they are in school, we don't take this decision lightly.  We definitely need to gain a better understanding of what would be expected of a child in P2.  From all of the reading I have done in the past two days, it seems that the rate of children needing to repeat a year prior to graduation is rather high.  Rather than having him struggling to catch up now, we are wondering if it might be better to hold him back now so that he learns to read, write, and do math in French in P1 rather than struggling to catch up and just generally feeling frustrated.  Based on our experience with his schooling thus far, we feel justified in being concerned that he will just shut down if he feels too frustrated rather than buckling down and working hard to catch up.  My question really is whether or not we would be allowed to register him for P1 if we as the parents feel that is best.

Regarding our younger son, I'm not suggesting putting him in a class with 2 year olds but rather start him with 4 year olds this coming year but then perhaps hold him back the last year of Maternelle before P1 if it feels appropriate at the time.  I basically want to know if this is allowed to be decided by the parents or if he would have to go into P1 on time based on his birthday falling days before the cutoff.  If we were to stay in the US, we were planning to start him in Kindergarten when he was 5 turning 6 rather than 4 turning 5 for several reasons.  We have time to figure that out.  Just curious more than anything on the policies.

Regarding your last comment, we are not looking for a school based on my husband's grade-school experience.  I was simply stating he was concerned about whether or not our older son is truly ready for P2.  I wouldn't guess that educational rigors have changed drastically.  We don't know anything about any of the schools.  That is why I am asking for help...

- location consideration
- diversity of student body
- quality of education
- desirable to have both kids at same school

While we will be under a relocation package rather than an "assignment", it may be possible to ask for help from the company paying for a private school for the first year since they are asking us to move so late in the year.  Any suggestions for a good private school for one year would also be appreciated.  We would also be open to living outside of Brussels and to expanding the commute time.

Thanks for any helpful advice anyone can lend!

All public French schools are on these 2 maps. The only restrictions are in the 9 schools in Vlaams Brabant, based on where work is, the only ones you'd be looking at are the 4 in Kraainem and Wezembeek - you must live in one of the 6 "facility" communes to go to these schools.
Brussels French
https://batchgeo.com/map/1f1bf2b3b6e4ad … a57d56a826
Brabant Wallon / Vlaams Brabant (for 4 Kraainem and Wezembeek schools)
http://batchgeo.com/map/cede6049273e541 … 1c5dc4af9b


The nearest communes with French schools to Diegem (Machelen) where you'll find expats living in big numbers are :
1140 Evere
1030 Schaerbeek
1040 Etterbeek
1160 Auderghem
1200 Woluwe-St-Lambert
1150 Woluwe-St-Pierre
1950 Kraainem
1970 Wezembeek-Oppem

You need to forget for a moment your wish list for a school and simply find which schools have places.

I've helped many families over the years and can tell you a positive outlook to schooling will make all the difference. Concentrating and even contemplating negative things like doubling is going to hamper not just your school search but could effect how successful integration is. If a child is going to withdraw at school, they'll do it whatever the school year they are in. Belgian schools are very much take it or leave it, their rules, if you start by trying to do something different and asking your child to be put in a different class to the one they should be in, well good luck. It's quite normal for children to start school here aged 7 without French, I think you need to stop looking at all the hurdles to jump over and concentrate on enriching your child in different ways by researching what they can do after school, where you'd like to live.

Ok in the above postcodes there are roughly  90 schools. Out of those schools, expect only 10% to have places. You need to look at where these communes are, where the schools are in the communes, try and narrow it down further according to the type of area you want to live in - Etterbeek is inner city, WSP is green suburbs. Then get on the phone and at the same time send emails in French, don't expect many schools to reply to emails though. Ask for places according to year of birth, ie P2 and M2, if no places, ask how many are on the waiting list and ask to be put on it, ask for an email confirmation of position on the waiting list. You can accept places at several schools at once. If you only find waiting list places, check once a week, evey week between now and mid July, then start again mid August to mid September, if it takes that long to find a place.

As for private schools, well here is a complete map of all of them. Choose according to location and price and language.
http://batchgeo.com/map/0777fe5f939fe09 … 91ceee1066


Finally the R0 between 4 bras and Vilvoorde, that includes near Diegem, is the busiest road in Belgium. Look at ways to void as much of the RO as possible, such as using boul de la Woluwe up WSL/WSP.

Oh another thing, you want to see what level a P2 child should be at, take a look at the text books used, such as Galaxie Math and Math et Moustique in Maths.
http://www.enseignement.be/index.php?
page=25137&act=search&type=1&annee=2&discipline=5&mots=&editeur=

Thank you!  Out of curiosity, is the use of a fountain pen still the norm for all work?  No pencils?

They use fountain pens from the age of 6 and they rarely spill ink. Our children started with these specialist ones for children. Use of a fountain pen can transform a child's handwriting, if they've had difficulty in using biros. They do start for a few weeks with a pencil, if they can hold the pencil correctly, then they transfer to fountain pen.
http://www.amazon.fr/Lamy-F-P-009-LH/dp … ume+enfant

I'll give you a little help with the phone calls. Wezembeek, Kraainem, WSP and WSL are where I'd personally look, so long as you can afford the housing in that area. That narrows down choice to around 30 schools, take out "Athénée Royal" ones out too. Catholic are usually more popular, they are not all strict and none overly religious, some use active pedagogies, just like communal or non religious aligned ones do too. Wezembeek and Kraainem have a limited intake as you have to live there, there is therefore less pressure for school places there.

Oh and in the east Brussels / Wezembeek / Tervuren areas, there are around 30 activities you can do after schools in English. It's a great place to live for a bilingual French-English child. I let our children do one activity each in English, they did rugby and Scouts and dancing.

If you join BCT, you can gain a whole social life in English, they now have after school groups for school age children too, previously things were very much geared towards the under 3s. The HQ is in Wezembeek in a community centre which offers lots of things in French too, some activities are here, others are in members' houses.
http://bctbelgium.org/

Thank you for that update!  I have made a spreadsheet with a list of schools to call.  Now to start making calls!  For the four "facility" schools you listed, if we call and they have a spot, will they let us reserve a spot even though we don't live there yet?  Would they let us register with the understanding that we would need to live in the correct area before school starts?  Since we are flexible on where we live, will that be enough or would we need to register a specific address?

What is the issue with the "Athénée Royal" schools?  Totally full?  Not desirable?

Merci!

You'll have to contact the 4 facility schools in Kraainem and Wezembeek and ask each head individually. I know families who have made enquiries and been offered places without housing yet arranges in the communes, don't know what the heads have told them, at a guess the head has pencilled in their names for places and the families have returned to formally enrol once they have housing arranged which qualifies them to enrol their child. Yes you'd definitely need to live in the communes BEFORE your child starts school there, just not to initially reserve the place. If ever you move out of the facility communes, you must remove your child from the facility French schools. A further complication is that your elder child will be in P2 and 4 years from going to secondaire. For the past 4 years, secondaire enrolments have been done in basically the same way, you either have priority (siblings, teacher's child, child in care) or not priority. All these children are ordered for places according to the order of proximity of primaire attended and home and order of proximity of secondaire desired and home. Only primaires funded by the French community count in these measurements. Those children coming from  a school funded by the Flemish community (that includes the facility French schools) are NOT part of this system of ordering and measurements, they are given the AVERAGE of all children applying for a school. The 2 nearests secondaires to the 4 Kraainem/Wezembeek facility primaires are immensely popular and this year even those non priority children attending their second nearest primaires didn't yet get offered places, only those attending their nearest primaire and for which these 2 secondaires were their nearest have been so far offered places. Scores are between 5.94 and 1.5, so far only those scoring 5.94 got places! If the average score of all applications for these 2 nearest secondaires was 4, then the children at the 4 Kraainem/Wezembeek primaires get allocated 4 and if only those scoring 5.94 get places in reality, it means not a single non priority child from the Kraainem/Wezembeek primaires get places at these 2 nearest secondares and they then get allocated a 2nd or 3rd or 4th etc choice secondaire where their allocated average score gets them a place. In the previous years, several non priority children ended up at College Jean 23 in WSP, further away from home, but I know this year that this school filled its places, more popular than in previous years, so this year it's possible the children from the 4 Kraainem/Wezembeek facility primaires might not have got places there either! If you want to avoid this potential problem, if the system does not change in the next 4 years, choose a Bruxelles primaire and make sure anywhere you live places that primaire as 1st or 2nd nearest to home and that your preferred secondaire is 1st or 2nd nearest to home too.

As for Athénée Royal primaires, ah well demographics and unpopularity with locals. For the WSP one, your child might be the only English speaker in the primaire, whereas go up to road and you'll find masses of them in the other local schools.

Any thoughts on schools in Brussels 1000?

Merci!

You asked for recommendations of schools in areas within 20 minutes commute of Diegem with a quality education and diverse student body.
Bruxelles 1000 is 3 distinct areas, all of which are suburbs of Bruxelles Ville.
None of these areas are with 20 minutes commute of Diegem.
Few of the schools will have a diverse student body. Many children attending will be from disadvantaged backgrounds. Few English speaking in the majority of the schools, the few I'd recommend you would have zero chance of a place at.

Add to that Bruxelles Ville has a justified reputation as the very worst place to live for getting registered, you're likely to spend the first year in Belgium without full registration, meaning no health insurance refunds, difficulties with banking etc etc.

I am wondering why of all the areas of Brussels region, you are now looking at Bruxelles 1000.

Another terrible place to look would be 1050 post code.

I have already given you the post codes of all areas corresponding to your desires. Ignore them at your peril. This does sometimes happen, I end up saying "told you so".

Thankyou for the feedback. We were just wondering, not necessarily making plans as such to live in the heart of the city. The registration issue is interesting.  I'm curious what makes it difficult. Should we expect a month or more to register in other areas as well or is it generally immediate?

I think the population of Bruxelles Ville would like to know too why their commune stands out as the hardest to deal with.

Registration is never immediate. The Police must visit you. You then must return to the commune/gemeente to receive registration docuements. If you're an EU national, then it is straightforward. If you're the dependent of an EU national, it takes about 6 months as checks are made you're not claiming benefits, after which you get EU treaty rights. If you're a non EU national here are a student or on a work permit, it can take a while too. It really depends on circumstances. If you're an EU national, you can apply (it's not obligatory) for a residents' card, that takes about a month to be produced and to receive the PIN.

Interesting!  I have Irish citizenship as well as one of our boys.  My husband and other son do not.  We haven't yet started working with the emigration service my husband's company uses so we haven't had the opportunity to discuss/explore this yet.  I'm wondering how companies handle this when relocating families not on assignment to make sure we are covered in event of emergency.  I'm also wondering if this applies to the way social security and annual paid leave work as well.  Any suggestions for resources to learn the finer points of all of this?  We are trying to learn as much as we can so if there are things he needs to ask for before accepting the offer we can do that rather than getting caught off guard later.  He has been reading the documentation for the reciprocal social security agreement but some things are really unclear so we are hoping to get that clarified.  We are not planning on me working at least in the beginning.  Now I'm wondering if my husband's registration will have to be complete before he can get his work permit?  I'm sure the emigration company will figure out if they need to apply for a visa for him.  When we went through the process for another European country all that was required was for me to go to an office, register, and then I could register the rest of my family immediately and my husband could then work. 

I'd truly appreciate any suggestions for resources to figure all of this out.

Thanks!

EU nationals and dependents do not need work permits to live in Belgium, only the means to live and they can get residency. Your husband doesn't need any visa unless he is a visa national. Your husband does not need a work permit, unless that is you are not travelling with him? I'm not sure what you mean about relevance to social security and annual leave - these are based on who you work for, currency you are paid in from which country, not which nationality you are. Reciprocal social security with which country and why is this relevant? Why are you using an emigration company when you are EU nationals/dependents?

The company uses an emigration company that covers all of the logistics of the move.  It is their job to figure out what is needed, apply for whatever we need, organize the moving of our personal belongings, etc.  It is just how they do it as he works for a large company and they move people all over the world.  We are moving from the US and have US citizenship.  So, for social security, I am talking about the reciprocal agreement between the US and Belgium. It looks like he would pay into the Belgian system at the appropriate percentage (which is different from the US) but years paid into the SS system in the US count later if we were to stay and retire in Belgium and likewise the years he pays into the Belgian system would be counted in the US if we moved back to the US and later retired in the US.  He is meeting with the Belgian HR person tomorrow to get some answers but it looked to us like annual leave was government regulated and he'd have to work a full year before qualifying for the 14th "month" payment in the summer.  We also need to find out if that is affected at all by his tenure with the company and the fact that he's relocating with the company.  Hopefully they will be able to answer these questions!  Since we've only been working on all of this for one week, there is allot we don't know.  That is why I'm here asking questions and looking for resources. 

Yes you work a full year for your 13th month in Belgium. Annual leave is a legal minimum and up to the company to set above. I'll repeat, you need no work permits, you just get on a plane, one with USA passport, one with Irish, you arrive, find somewhere to live, somewhere to go to school, bring marriage certificate, register with the commune,Irish get E cards quickly IF you want them, US get F cards but must wait about 6 months. I think you should concentrate on NOW rather than retirement plans.IF you want to make your relocation easier, DO NOT use a relocation agent and do your own area and school search. ALWAYS find a local school before somewhere to live and don't choose a local school if you cannot afford to live near it. If you try and do it the other way around, you'll be making your life far more difficult than you need. I know  a family who has just managed to find their own local school and house to fit in with this school, a good location for work. They did it all in less than a month and one single reccie trip, no relocation agent, just internet connection and a telephone.

Thanks!  Yes, the basic plan is find a school first and then a place to live. We already reserved places for them in a school in W-O since that seems easiest to secure. Now we are starting to make calls to schools in WSP as that is where we think we'd prefer to live. We've looked at a housing search site and it looks to not be a problem to find housing in our price range. We're making progress!

Thanks again for your insight!

I found this information very helpful.  http://www.blbe.be/en/long-term-stay

Is there any benefit to having the actual card besides some level of indestructibility?

Since it was mentioned earlier with regard to housing location, can anyone share which secondary schools (assuming university bound students) are considered more desirable on the East side of Brussels?  Which ones are generally avoided?  Also, for primary school, we will take what we can get for the coming year with an eye on the possibility of switching after the first year.  Can anyone share which schools are considered more desirable for primary and maternelle since we would need to apply in September for those schools?  Are there school reviews somewhere even if they are in French?

Many many thanks!

The most popular secondary schools are the ones which are now full after 1st round of enrolments.

39 out of 113 secondaires in Brussels filled their 1ere secondaire places.
http://www.inscription.cfwb.be/index.ph … b9286fce24

You may check which ones are full her.
http://www.inscription.cfwb.be/index.ph … no_cache=1


You cannot change schools after P1, P3 and P5. You can only change schools after P2, P4, P6. You can change after all maternelle years. You have the first 15 days of September to change every year, for all school years (except P2, P4 and P6), after that you are locked in for the year in maternelle and 2 years in primaire. Therefore your strategy of putting your child into P1 would be disastrous if you dislike the school you have chosen, he'd have to stay there 2 years.

Secondary places, if the enrolments procedure stays the same, is based on order of proximity of primaire to home and secondaire to home. You should check before renting if your chosen primaire is 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th+ nearest to home, 1st to 5th gets best points, 6th onwards are treated the same. At our children's 2 secondaires, you basically need to be 1st/2nd nearest primaire and secondaire to get in. You can check here the order of proximity of primaires and secondaires. This is not relevant for Wezembeek and Kraainem French primaires who receive average points which are not normally enough for the nearest 2 secondaires which are excellent.
http://www.inscription.cfwb.be/index.php?id=382


There are no school reviews or comparison tables. The only means of comparison is if you ask each primaire for their CEB results, average scores, rather than percentage of passes, but most will probably say no. You can also take a look at the socio-economic index of each primaire and secondaire, indicating where the richer and poorer kids go to school. In WSP for example, out of 10 schools, 8 of them rate 17 to 20 out of 20 on this index, only 2 of them rate around 12 out of 20, indicating the children are poorer there than the other schools, not surprisingly these are the 2 most likely schools to have places. It's a crude way of measuring schools and the index was published on data now 4 years out of date.

I need help on knowing about pre-schooling for 9 month kid in area of Schaerbeek Meiser. Thanks for sharing information.

Look on the schools map. Immediately I'd think of Sainte-Marie-Meiser and école communale no 16. They're better than average for Schaerbeek. Otherwise travel south to Divin Sauveur, du Bonheur.

https://batchgeo.com/map/1f1bf2b3b6e4ad … a57d56a826

You seem to have a lot of knowledge on schools. I was wondering if you could help me (I am Dutch/Indian.
My kids are French (husband) and Dutch/Indian. My son is 7 (march 6) and my daughter is 4 (August 3). They currently go to the French school in the Netherlands. They speak (and my son reads) fluent French and English and understand Dutch and Hindi.
We are moving to Brussels soon and are not stuck on an area (ideally though I would prefer international environment ). I would have preferred Frehch / English but as these schools are above 6K per child ... we can not.
Which good immersion school do u recommend? I would prefer immersion schools unless you recommend otherwise.
Thank you.

What do you mean by immersion schools and which languages?

My husband informed me you have some bilingual(public)  schools that offer first language in French but second in Dutch... is this correct? Are they good?

You have zero chance of places in these 15 or so schools. If you can read French the list is easy to find. But you won't get places. Failure rate is high too.

Choose French in Brussels to begin with as too late this year to apply for Dutch

You are making the most common mistake expat arrivals make in thinking you can choose any school. Locals camp overnight sometimes for places in Brussels schools or rent properties to get geographical advantage. Therefore under these conditions you need a reality check.

Where exactly will work be. Start from there

My husband is French so I'll ask him.
Zero chance... yikes!
As for area... what is a nice area then (cause my husband is working in the center) so we are open to areas.
I'm sorry I know you are helping, I appreciate it.
I'm genuinely lost. Want a great area and at the same time a wonderful school for the kids (number 1 priority actually).
Any tips?

When you say failure rate btw... what do u mean?

You need to trust me on this issue as I have worked in a school where they practice immersion. At French schools that do Dutch immersion, the children start aged 2.5 in French and then don't start until age 5 in Dutch. The proportion of Dutch varies too. There will be no or perhaps 1 Dutch speaker in the class. The children need to be completely fluent in French. The sole Dutch speaker is the teacher. The level of Dutch achieved with no Dutch speaking children is frankly poor and will be functional and never fluent, unless the children speak Dutch outside school which is rare in Brussels as there are so far opportunities in Dutch. The failure rate is high because children have no "need" to learn Dutch when only the teacher speaks it and everyone else speaks French inside the classroom and in the playground. Some children become miserable in these circumstances, forced into the immersion classes when all they want is to be in French.  For Dutch speaking children, what is the point of being put into an immersion class too? So really it's best to accept that the best option for French and Dutch speaking children in Brussels arriving not at 2.5 years old and also after enrolments have happened will be a 100% French public school. You could perhaps consider Dutch in 2018-19 start,  but even then, do not forget that the class might have no other mother tongue Dutch speakers and will contain miserable students who don't want to be there but whose mainly white middle class ambitious parents put them there as it is indeed important to speak both languages for many jobs these days. So when your children speak Dutch and French at home, they don't need to be educated in Dutch because their Dutch is likely to be so far ahead of the majority in Brussels Dutch schools that your children are likely to be held back.

So now you really need to answer the question of where work is. There are several "centres" in Brussels. Which street is work on? Without knowing where work is, pointless recommending where to look for schools or houses.

I def trust your knowledge here!
Thanks for all this. Helps a lot. Really appreciate it.
He works at  Candriam BELGIUM. Address: Avenue des Arts 58, 1000 Brussels.

OK now you should decide urban or suburban. For urban anywhere between schuman and gribaumont metro. Or 500m radius Meriden or Montgomery metro. For suburban anywhere along metro lines 1 and 5 tram lines 39 and 44.

As long as it is expat friendly with an international environment I am open. What do you suggest?

Too many schools to suggest.
Brussels is 40 per cent foreign reflected in school population.

A school with places is your goal. You are applying late in the year and not age 2 to 3 so your options are limited. You need to get on the phone once you ve decidwd urban or suburban