looking for a reputed, local school near VUB (Brussels)

Almost all local schools have extra-curricular activities during lunch times or straight after school, but most children do extra-curricular activities outside of school completely on wednesday afternoons, school evenings or saturdays/sundays. The choice is enormous of activities.

Your daughter will be in 2e maternelle still this school year, so 2 more years before formal education of primaire in the local school system. Grammar is taught in overload in French or Dutch in the local system but not until primaire.

There is no English taught in local French schools in Brussels until the age of 14. In a few Dutch schools, English is taught as an addition to the curriculum, but no more than a couple of hours a week. If you want English, you will have to go private outside the local system. Here are links to all local French schools  and international ones with their fees marked.

batchgeo.com/map/6972012203999a3df3a7a5fb2902bcb7

batchgeo.com/map/0777fe5f939fe09 … 91ceee1066


I would not say Dutch or French is easier to learn for an anglophone, but in Brussels the Dutch schools have mainly non Dutch speakers in them, so you have the majority of children speaking French or other language in the playground and Dutch in the classroom, which brings its own issues. If you are here long term, as an anglophone, you will probably find French a better option, as French is spoken more widely in Brussels and many anglophones are in the local French schools, a lot less in the Dutch ones.

The local French schools with great reputations are very hard to get places in eg St André and Robert Catteau (Aurore). You would be better looking at Jardin d'Elise in that area. Or a little further away Paradis des Enfants (rather large though) or Chant d'Oiseau. Acacia is a bit of a trek to VUB, a minimum 30 minutes.

PS I would try and get a place in 2e maternelle ASAP, many of the schools will already have done their enrolments for next year even, better to get a place as early as possible.

Thanks a lot, schoolmum. I've contacted  a number of French school and Acacia by email. Only Acacia got back to me and they have offered me a place for my daughter in En-Fr section for 2012-2013. Other schools did not respond. Probably, I will need to call them up in January. I also wonder about how good Acacia is and is it better to have my daughter in Acacia if I like to keep my daughter's English skills intact? Do you know about the public opinion for Acacia?

Also, if I enrol my daughter in a local school and will she have enough English skills if she refreshes her knowledge in secondary? Can you compare students from Acacia and local French schools with respect to their English skills for the university level outside Belgium, say, U.S?
(I assume that there will be advanced English classes in secondary).

I know I am asking lot of questions and speculating a lot, but I would be really grateful to you if you could answer some of the above questions.

Firstly, you must be aware use of email is less widespread as a means of replying to enrolment requests in local school than using a phone, especially if you have emailed in English.

Acacia is 50/50 French/English or French/Dutch from 3 - 5 years 1ere to 3e maternelle. Then in 1ere primaire (year a child turns 6 by 31st December) the curriculum becomes a formal one, like in a local public school, BUT 75% of the curriculum is then taught in English/Dutch, the written based eg Maths and English, the other 25% in French, eg music and PE in French (depends on Fr/Eng or Fr/Dutch). It is not therefore an ideal situation for a child age 5/6 and arriving with a small amount or no French and being an anglophone. I have met quite a few anglophone children who have joined Acacia and left quite soon after, despite being very happy with the school, because they were not informed of this 72/25 English/French mix in 1ere/2e primaire.

In the French/English stream at Acacia, there is a high percentage of non francophones and if you think a 4 year old will be fluent in French after a year at this school, I think you might be a bit disappointed, as there will be a tendency for the anglophones to stick together, the Spanish speakers (lots of them there) to stick together, the Belgian French to stick together in the playground. For French fluency quickly, a francophone school is a much better idea.

The English stream at Acacia only goes to around 3e primaire at the moment, the school is not long enough established to compare how well their pupils fare against children at local French schools.

Acacia is not recognised by the French community and is classed the same as home schooling. The CEB must be passed (6e primaire exam) and if it is not, it makes it extremely difficult to move sideways or upwards into the local system at age 12.

What language does your daughter speak at home? If it is English, then she would not lose her English skills.

BTW I really advise you to place your child in school immediately, rather than waiting for next September. School is free here and there will be a place in 2e maternelle somewhere near to home. The average child in a French school will take 12-24 months to achieve fluency to the level they are indistinguishable from mother tongue French speakers, that's for age 4, a little longer for a slightly older child, in a bilingual school, it will take longer and may not produce any reasonable spoken French at all, if there are few French mother tongue speakers in the class - quite usual in several of the bilingual schools in the Brussels area.

Thanks a lot, again. I am going to call all the local French schools you mentioned in Etterbeek on 9th. I hope I can find a place for my dd. We speak English at home with her, and she goes to a pre-school in Australia and is at per with the locals here. We will continue speaking in English with her. I just need to find out how she can get the written skills in English later on.

Could you please tell me this: among the following schools, which ones have secondary schools as well: Les Jardins d'Elise, Institut Ste Anne, Paradis des Infants, Chant d'oiseau, Catteau Aurore ? What do we need to do for secondary schools?

Thanks a lot and merry christmas :-)

I also thought that I would like to know about Dutch schools near Etterbeek. Do you have any info on them? I had been to Sweden and used to understand and could talk a little bit 6-7 years ago. Will it be easier for us to go through a Dutch system rather than French System?

Dear schoolmum,

I forgot to mention that we don't step into Brussels until July 2012. So, I can't put my dd in any 2e maternelle at the moment. I am just trying to book a place for her in a god French/Dutch school.

None of the schools mentioned have secondary schools, and in any case at the moment, even if they did have secondary schools, there would be at the moment no priority for entry into French secondary schools as priority entry from "attached" primaries" is being phased out, only sibling priority. It's impossible to predict how secondary school admissions will be done in 6 years time, secondary starts at age 12 here, after 6 years of primary. Currently for French schools, living near your primaire and secondaire gives significant advantage, but again this might not be the case in 6 years time. There are plenty good secondaires in the area, I would not worry about that issue now.

I really wouldn't like to recommend Dutch or French, it depends on where you live, how long you plan to stay, whether you move to another country with English, French or Dutch, at what age your daughter would move. In Brussels, it's far far easier to live in French, a Dutch school here would initially be harder language wise only because of the interference of French speakers there, eventually it would probably produce a child bilingual French / Dutch, but initially acquisition of Dutch might be slower because there will be less exposure to the language than you would get to French in a French school in Brussels. There are far more extra-curricular opportunities in Dutch than French, I think most Dutch first language children end up doing things in French but very few French speaking children end up doing things in Dutch! You need to step out to Tervuren to go Dutch with a little less interference from French for example. From a language learning point of view, taking out the French / Dutch issue in Brussels, I'd say Dutch is initially easier to learn for an anglophone but only marginally easier, there is however evidence from the PISA reports that French second language students do better in French schools by age 16 than Dutch second language students in Dutch schools here. The Dutch schools are also loads loads loads better funded here and it seems very unfair to those with children in francophone schools that the Dutch schools are often spanking new and French schools falling apart - so here you need to look beyond initial opinions of how schools look and look instead at the children, the teachers, the work the children produce. I certainly know dozens of anglophone children in French schools in Brussels but only a handful of anglophones in Dutch schools, anglophones do tend to choose French because it is dominant in Brussels and more useful outside Belgium despite the fact that francophone schools are far more poorly funded, not because it is superior language because it isn't! It's a hard decision, Dutch or French in Brussels, whereas if you were moving for definite to say Tervuren, I'd say immediately Dutch, in Brussels as an anglophone, I'd probably if pushed say go for French. But do be aware that the school system is loads different to what you have experienced in Oz.

On your knowledge of Swedish, you will indeed find it easier to understand Dutch than French if you have no previous exposure to either language - I have a good Swedish friend whose French is perfect but she can understand even more Dutch than me as an anglophone and has never studied Dutch and works in French and English. But incidently her children speak perfect French (school language), Swedish (mum), English (dad), plus some Dutch (half siblings and language of TV and where they live in Tervuren).

You might find a bit of opposition to enrolling officially before July without being present in Belgium. You might be able to get a school to "reserve" a place by email and sending passport copies by PDF. Some local schools are really resistent to using emails to communicate, it is very frustrating. You may find Acacia or BICS simply an easier way into local schools - I do know several children who have spent a year at these schools, because they are private and therefore usually very keen to take you money and have places as most Belgians cannot afford the fees, then the children have moved into the local system, once the parents are settled. I know a family with 2 children currently at Acacia simply because the mum failed to secure any places at local French schools from applying from abroad and she is hoping to get them into an Ixelles French maternelle for September - they are picking up French very slowly there and mum knows it will come quicker if they are in French only - they speak Dutch as mother tongue in fact and were brought up in the US before moving so speak English too, she could definitely sympathise with trying to enrol into a local school from abroad.
There are separate maternelles / kleuterscholen here, but given your daughter's age, I would recommend only looking at the maternelles / kleuterscholen which are attached to primaires / lagere scholen, so she doesn't have to change after a year.

Thanks schoolmum, I will try my luck.

Here is a map of all Dutch language schools in Brussels region, plus I added on Tervuren, Overijse and Hoeilaart schools, south east of Brussels. All the address come from the www.ond.vlaanderen.be website.

http://www.batchgeo.com/map/0ab9b04d714 … 479275d4cf

Dear schoolmum,

I am more than 3 years late in going to Brussels. All the schools you mentioned near VUB, don't have places any more in P2! I have only got places in Ecole No. 7 in Ixelles, Le Cedres and La Futaie in W-B. We have only seen Ecole No. 7. Can you give me any guidance for choosing between these three? Should I waitlist my daughter in any other school? How much difference is there beween these schools above and other well-sought after schools you mentioned before?

Thanks in advance,

Pritha

Choose the school nearest to home. The schools are all good in those areas.