Moving to Brussles in the middle of the school years with 2 kids

Start with where work is, budget, look on immoweb at what you can afford.
If you are moving to Brussels region, then French is by far the majority language and with Romanian, French would be the obvious choice. Some areas harder than others to get school places, without knowing your work location and budget, cannot advise which areas to look at.

Thanks for the quick answer, one of the jobs is at Europ. Commission rue joseph 30, the other at gare du nord, as a renting budget I would say not over 850 (the rent).
I saw the area gare du nord and is not the place where I would want to live, so it should be closer to the other place of work. But I have no idea how to manage the kids in the middle of the school year (I could maybe leave them in Romania until June when the school year ends with one of us that will take 1/2 months non payed vacation) but after that they have to join Brussels. What are the options for the summer vacation?
I'm having difficulties organizing things and even thoughts of refusing the job, just because I don't know what to do about the school (all friends we have there had little kids when they relocated and one of the parents stayed at home until they found a school).
Thank you in advance for your support.

Are your children not entitled to Romanian section of European school 4 in Laeken?

The obvious place to look to live is Schaerbeek (1030) or nearby, in between both work places. Plus good for European school 4. The south end of Schaerbeek is more prosperous. I'd aim for school / apartment along the road called in French "petite ceinture" R21. The number 7 tram runs along it, the 25 runs along part of it which goes to gare du nord, the number 7 connects with metro to European Commission area AND also to European school 4 in Laeken.

For your budget, you'd only get a 2 bed apartment.

Local school places however are very very hard to get in that area of Brussels, not impossible, just need lots of phone calls / emails / visits, to get lucky with school places.

You'll find a map of local french schools on facebook, in the "Parent school support network Belgium".

Do not worry about Summer, child care can be less than 100 euro per child, for 8-5pm Summer camps which are plentiful

Parts of WSL will be good too.
Ecole du Bonheur
Institut de l'Angelus
Divin Saveur
St Dominique
Marie-Meiser
these are a few schools near the R21 route and good ones too

thank you very much for your help tervurener
my kids are not eligible for any European school, the job is for a local Belgian company, the client is the europ. commission , so the salary will be a medium to low one, not even close to anything from the commission, so it has to be a public school.
I will make some inquires about the area and the schools you indicated.
What about the kids not knowing french? I just take them to school and leave them there? (in case I find one) How they get through the day without talking to anyone?

I survive on a family income including child benefit with 4 kids on 3k per month, if I only had 2 kids and needed 2 beds, I could survive on around 2k per month.

The schools are often multi-national, those with high enough non francophones get funding for extra French immersion hours (whether the school uses it for that purpose I do not know, our school does), if lucky, your kids will get 2 or 3 hours of small ground intensive French per week.

It will indeed be hard at first, but many children go through this, it takes a positive outlook from children and parents. Mine started with no French aged 3,6,10. They are now completely fluent, it took them a year, the younger 2 speak French better than English now.

would it be realistic to consider a school and a house outside Brussels, let's say Anvers? I have heard about some future colleagues of my husband that live there, but I have no information if they have kids, if the kids are in Brussels and come every day to school or just stay there in Anvers, or if both parents drive/arrive by train every day to Brussels.

Why would you live in Antwerpen? What benefit would there be? Who would collect kids from school? How will you pay for extra travel costs? You certainly wouldn't be driving from Antwerpen and the added costs of a car too, it really doesn't make any sense at all.

Child benefit for 2 kids is about 250 euro per month.

You'd need a net income of under 2k per month combined, to pay for 800 euro 2 bed apartment and pay all your bills.

ok, is not realistic, I just thought that it might be easier to find a school and the living costs could be lower but even so, we would spent extra for the transportation. I am consulting vlan now and apparently there are options for our budget on the area indicated by you. Next week I will come to Brussles and also see the area live, I will have a better vision. I will also look up for some of the schools you mentioned maybe I can obtain at least one rendez-vous to know more about the possibility to register the kids for the 2 remaining months from the school year.
and one last question (for today), my oldest kid is in first grade here (is class 0 that correspond to age 6) will he be in maternelle until September or in the grade corresponding to age 6 from Belgium system?
This class 0 means preparation for school(is in the school, mandatory, can be skipped only after an evaluation), they study letters, numbers, operations with numbers, but not all are prepared to read until the end of the year and is ok like that.
Keeping in mind that he doesn't speak french, should he start 1 grade in September, like he never went to school?

If your children are born in 2008 and 2010, they would now be in P1 and M2, in September they should go in to P2 and M3. It makes no sense to go into any other years. Emails are often NOT responded to with as much frequency as phone calls, but you lose nothing by emailing local French schools.

Antwerpen is Dutch speaking, it would be far easier to do French with Romanian as mother tongue. It would be far more expensive to live in Antwerpen. Brussels has a far higher Romanian population, you'd be able to find friends I'm sure for the children who speak French and Romanian.

The best website for housing is www.immoweb.be

Dear tervurener you are a gold mine, thank you very much. My kids are indeed born in 2008 and 2010, I will take your advice as for the P1 and M2 for this year if possible, otherwise they will learn the language and nothing more. Next week I will only have Friday (and the weekend) in Brussles, for the last discussions for the job and I think the best would be to ask/propose them a start in June when the school year ends, I don't want to lose the job but it seems a bit complicated to bring the kids now.
About the child care over the summer can you give me some tips, is also in the schools or centers in the local community? We plan to stay in a hotel/aparthotel until we find the good house-school

www.lekid.be gives you lists of holiday camps, nearly all French ones, about 9 out of 10 holiday camps are listed here.