Schooling in Brussels - Part 1: Finding a school

The good, the bad and the ugly....  

Haha, well that might be a bit of an exaggeration.  Where to start....??  As many of you may know, I had every intention of using this fantastic european experience to get a bit of bilingualism into my kids too.  Learning a second language by total immersion is just a gift that few (of us anglophones) are able to experience. Language learning otherwise is just so hard and I doubt anyone comes anywhere near to fluent without actually living and breathing it in their daily life.  

Belgium is a tri-lingual country - French, Flemish (dutch) and a smattering of German. The country is split into the two main regions based on language and then there is Brussels which is supposedly bilingual, but in reality is almost exclusively french speaking. The work situation for hubby was in a Flemish speaking town.  Logic would suggest that we would live in said town, send the kids to the local schools within walking distance and integrate into the local Flemish Belgian culture.  This seemed sensible particularly given that hubby could speak a form of dutch through his functional afrikaans.  Unfortunately, logic and I do not always see eye to eye.  I had other ideas, deciding that Flemish/dutch was not going to be an extremely useful language to learn for the kids and thereby unilaterally deciding that they would need to go to a french speaking school instead. Again, unfortunately, despite the bilingual nature of the country, the language areas are very separate. There are essentially NO french speaking schools in the flemish areas and vice versa. The nearest french area to Aalst is Brussels, so here we are, as close as we can be to the outskirts of Brussels (for access to Aalst) while still having access to a native french speaking environment. 

Here are some great things about Belgian schools - they are FREE. From 2.5 years old onwards, there are no fees. Children generally start at kindi full-time from 2.5 years and then start in primary school at age 6 years old (or the year after they turn 6). Full time sounds like a lot for little kids, but it is probably actually shorter or similar hours to a lot of pre-schools.  The school day runs from 8:30-3:10 but finishes at 12:10pm on a Wednesday. Our school has the primaire and maternelle (primary and kindi) all together which is fantastic to be able to drop off the kids all in one go. 

Here are some differences from what we were used to and what we have in our inner city school here: 

1) there are no playgrounds. Yep, the lunch/morning tea play area is essentially a square concrete courtyard.  I was actually really concerned about this, but amazingly the kids do actually manage to find things to do! The little ones in kindi have an indoor play room with bikes and climbing equipment so there is a bit more physical activities for them.  Other schools do of course have playgrounds, depending on where they are situated etc. 

2) The school doors are locked and there is no entry outside of pick up and drop off hours. This is primarily for safety so I am well pleased that random people cannot wander the corridors. But if you are just 1 minute late for drop off, you have to wait outside until they deign to allow you to enter the building.  

3) There is no school uniform. Yee-ha for the kids who love this concept, not so happy for me as it means that I do have to make sure they have clothes washed and ready to wear! 

Here's a picture of the school from the outside.  Parents start queuing outside the doors about 20 minutes before the end of classes. Yep there is not much to look at from the outside....

So, how does one find a school in Brussels?? Actually a horrible, awful, stressful, agonising process. There are no zoning requirements (in general, although some rules differ according to the commune). And there are different rules (and different curriculum, and different processes) for the french versus the flemish schools. In essence, you have about 2 weeks each year to put your child's name down on a list at the school you want to go to. And then the places are allocated. The End.  Or, as I have just found out yesterday, there is 1 day to put your kids name down on some waitlists. I queued for 4 hours for that privilege. Oh yes I did (and I did it without batting an eyelid - I have obviously started to integrate!). Gotta love Belgian efficiency. 

Of course, the normal 2 week time period for us to enrol our kids in most of the local schools for the Sept 2013-June 2014 year was in December 2012. ie almost a year before we knew we were even going to get there.  

So we had just landed, and being stuck in an apartment in freezing weather with 4 kids who were bored out of their minds and I HAD to find somewhere, anywhere to get them into.   Small note here: private schools/international schools are hugely expensive and you need to be more or less, a millionnaire to send 4 kids privately in Europe. I think the fees would be close to 100,000 eu per year. Yep. Not a goer. 

Amidst the feeling of impending gloom at the thought that I might have to homeschool my kids (quite possibly my worst nightmare), I got an enormous amount of help from expats who understood the system.  I was given a map of all the public french speaking primary schools in Brussels.  Here's the link here: 

Map of French primary schools in Brussels

First day back to school after the Christmas holidays was the 6th January.  The process to find a school for my kids was that I had to RING each school individually and ask them if they had places available.  And to keep going until I found an available school.... From the map I could see that there were literally hundreds of schools. But I could cut down the number by half as we needed to be living on the west side of Brussels rather than the more popular east side. I wondered what would happen if there were NO places at any schools left... or if there was only 1 place at different schools and the kids had to split up...? There was absolutely no requirement for the local schools to take kids within the local community and if the only school with places was 20km away, so be it.   I was also very conscious that we were now half way through their school year, and we were pretty much reliant on the school having had kids leave part way through the year.  This was coupled with the minor problem that we did not know where we were going to live. And with rental accommodation being in such short supply, it was really a big gamble to try and find a school which would be close enough to not be a massive trek to get to each day.  

I tend to like to research things a bit before blindly going into it, but schools here often do not have web pages, or nothing very comprehensive. So it was very difficult to have any idea of the quality of the school or what the school offers.   Finally on that first day back after the break, I started with my list of numbers. And yes, it had to all be done in French. No, none of them spoke ANY english. I was armed with about 4 words that were essential in my enquiry and woe betide me if they actually tried to say anything other than 'Yes there is space' or' no there are no spaces' as this would have been beyond my capabilities at that point in time. The four local schools in Berchem were all full, not a single place available :(.  I tried these first as I already knew this was an area that we may end up living in and the schools had a good reputation from my online conversations with other expat mums. But on my next attempt- I found a school with places for the older two.  They asked when they wanted them to start- tomorrow? I suggested a few weeks- after all, we had barely just arrived and the poor things were due the rest of their summer holidays! This was apparently Not On. No, they absolutely had to start within a week... ok, ok, ok. Poor things, not much of a breaking in period.... 

In the end, the school had places from all 4. I definitely took this as a sign. 2 children had just left the school in December - what a miracle! The older two were definitely bored being cooped up in an apartment so they were very excited about starting school. The little two, I may have not mentioned much about the fact that they were starting as I knew they would be stressed about it for the rest of the week.....

The first 3 weeks in school was a kind of living hell school run. We lived in Ixelles, the school was in Koekelberg, a whole 11 minutes by car, but almost 45-60 minutes by public transport depending on how many 'throw themselves on the ground' tantrums the little two had along the way... Fun times.   We would leave in the dark, and drizzling rain with me carrying anywhere from 3-5 bags and at least 1 small child, walk 100m to the bus stop. Attempt to not get killed by crossing 2 roads in the dark with straggling children. Catch the bus up the road for 2 stops, standing room only. Attempt to make it off the bus with all said children and bags. Walk to the metro. Negotiate with the mini terrorists (oops small children) which one of them will get to swipe my transport card. Catch metro for 7 stops. Ongoing negotiations about who gets the window seat, who will sit next to the stranger, who gets to sit on my lap (yes I have two knees, this is ample for 2 children), separate the ones trying to hit each other. Remember to take all bags, coats, gloves, hats off the train (and children) at the stop.  Walk another 100m or so to the tram.  Negotiate with the mini terrorists again to get up off the floor of the metro station and no I cannot carry two children and 5 bags by myself. Get on the tram. Re-negotiate who gets to swipe the travel card, sit by the window, stand on the twisty turny bit of the tram, push the button, sit by the button.  Get off the tram.  Can almost see the school from the stop.  Decide it is just easier to carry two children and 5 bags than re-negotiating removing them from the pavement which they are coating in salty tears and saliva. 100m later we arrive. 1 hour after leaving, and it is still dark.  Then I go home to have a nap and gather strength to repeat the whole process again, but twice as bad as they are now tired and irrational little terrorists, for the trip home.... Can't say I miss this particular period in my life....