which school? athenee royal rixensart OR Athénée Royal Maurice Carême?

They are the same school so whichever section of the school is nearer to home.

However if you live in uccle it is pretty crazy to school so far away why would you do that

Hi school mum
Because I want a French /English school. Am very surprised they have space and am curious why.
I have a choice between all these 3 schools ... do you know which one is best and do you have any recommendations? Travel is not a problem for me.

Thanks

I m not at all surprised the ar wavre-rien sart has spaces.

If you speak English at home go for french only if your children currently do not speak  French.

I've just re-read your posts. You asked for "expat friendly and international environment".

So you have chosen 2 schools in south Uccle, an area which is NOT
1) expat friendly - nope, not unless you consider the dominant French (France not Belgium) population will be expat friendly
2) international environment -nope not unless you consider dominant French makes it international, the population is not particularly multi-national at all

Furthermore it is
3) bloody far from your work place and will drive you nuts getting to work!!!!!

The 2 Uccle schools have a very low percentage of non Belgians / French, unlike other areas of Brussels where 40-50% of children are from multiple nations other than Belgium. You will be very lonely at these 2 schools.

Rixensart or Wavre????????????????? What?????????? 1-2 hours travel time into your work if you take the car and count on 1 hour if you use public transport. That's one way.

I would say completely start again your search.
Forget Uccle.
Forget Rixensart.
Forget Wavre.

You want expat friendly and international.

1) Etterbeek
2) south Schaerbeek
3) WSL
4) WSP
5) Auderghem
6) Watermael-Boitsfort.
7) Wezembeek-Oppem
8) Kraainem

Plenty of French schools with places.
Schools with 40% non Belgian
Some of above have good support for Dutch.
Masses of English activities in these areas, about 30 things for kids in English V 2 or 3 things for kids in English in Uccle.

You need to start again if you want to make your lives easy and attain your goals of international and expat friendly.

Of course you can instead ignore the advice but I know you will regret all the choices proposed for schools and areas.

definitely do NOT want to ignore your advice. i appreciate it very much.
just a little background... my husband is french and i am dutch/indian (born in the Netherlands but indian parents)
my kids speak fluent french and english and understand hindi and basic dutch
i want an international environment for them. preferably a school where they have english / french where i do not need to pay "out of my nose"
le versaeu is full, so no chance
the european school (my first choice) completely full, so no chance
which is how i found the school in wavre. i work from home so commute for me is no issue. my husband works in brussels and as i'll be dropping off and picking up the kids he doesn't care about the commute. etherbeek is the location we are looking as it's in-between
however if the school is not good... i am confused. i REALLY want an international environment school... what do you recommend based on this complete information?

Not sure you've listened yet.

You won't get French and English well supported in the French-English schools private sector.

You want an international environment, somewhere you can support French, Dutch, English.

There can be few worse places to live than near the schools you've suggested.

Choose the French system.


1) Etterbeek
2) south Schaerbeek
3) WSL
4) WSP
5) Auderghem
6) Watermael-Boitsfort.
7) Wezembeek-Oppem
8) Kraainem

NainaandNicolas wrote:

definitely do NOT want to ignore your advice. i appreciate it very much.
just a little background... my husband is french and i am dutch/indian (born in the Netherlands but indian parents)
my kids speak fluent french and english and understand hindi and basic dutch
i want an international environment for them. preferably a school where they have english / french where i do not need to pay "out of my nose"
le versaeu is full, so no chance
the european school (my first choice) completely full, so no chance
which is how i found the school in wavre. i work from home so commute for me is no issue. my husband works in brussels and as i'll be dropping off and picking up the kids he doesn't care about the commute. etherbeek is the location we are looking as it's in-between
however if the school is not good... i am confused. i REALLY want an international environment school... what do you recommend based on this complete information?

Sorry been sick a few days so took some time to reply...
Wow thank you for your reply school mum! It's really appreciated and a great comfort especially when you are trying to sort everything out from another location! So all this info is appreciated... A LOT!

I did listen but to keep my home environment neutral where both parties are happy... i want an english - french system. i hear you when you say stick more to the french, but it won't help our home environment especially when i am tired of only having french people around me and am now craving an international environment and education for my kids.
i read some of your previous posts. based on what you are writing i will visit:
St Michel school
BICS school (i know it's private)
and the French school I mentioned previously as they all have availability.
If there is any other school you recommend (private up to €7000) or public (understand then it will be french) am all ears!!!

Again thank you thank you thank you! I mean it.

I don't recommend any of the schools less than 15k doing French English except lycee francais and its location is poor for work.
I don't recommend any of the French public schools you have places at. Homborch and Messi or are French only so don't comply with any of your criteria other far from work not multinational not good for anglophone kids just big no.

I recommend if you cannot get a place at Lf and cannot afford bsb to go with a French school in a multinational area and school population and do English outside school.

St Michel would be awful why there? They don't allow visits and there won't be space.

Why bics?

Choose a public French school full of multinational kids.

Most of etterbeek not St Michel.

Most wsp not mater dei or notre dame des graces.

Most wsl not ar wsl.

this is fantastic feedback! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! Am on it;-)

schoolmum i have been quiet for a while but now i need your advise please!
We got into all 3 schools, French Lycee, Messidor and Joli-Bois.
Can you PLEASE HELPS us in deciding (I admit a good problem to have). French school vs either of the public schools. What is YOUR opinion? Thank you!!!

My opinion is to look where I said which rules out uccle and go for schools in the communes listed.


You can do loads better than joli Bois. I know several other families who ve recently got places at other wsp schools.

Which has schools did you phone

ok thank you.
we applied to MANY schools in the areas you recommended but as we are "late in the game" we only got into a few and out of these few, the 3 here were the best. hence we have decided to go for messidor.
thank you though;-)

Poor decision not very international at Messi or and not much for English speakers in the area.

I would take joli Bois and keep trying for other schools near joli Bois  100 times better area ok school secondary school choices fat superior too

On the plus side for joli Bois it hosts the local music academy free music drama and ballet lessons.

On Saturdays it hosts school in English cheap and good too called kiddy Zen. It s a 10 minutes tram ride to Dutch majority area.

Messi or area could not be so different very Belgian French nothing around in English or Dutch.