School days: Choosing a school in Belgium

Moving to Belgium with a family is full of big decisions, but one of the most important decisions you’ll make is where to put your child into school. School attendance is required here for children from ages six to 18. But there is a wide variety of choices of the type of school in which you enrol your child, depending on their language, background and talents.

The first decision to make is whether your child will go to a local or an international school. This depends largely on the child, their age and your family’s plans for the future.

Local schools

The advantages of choosing a local school are mainly ones of immersion, convenience and cost. Your child will be immersed in the local language (French, Dutch or German) and culture. Also, since the school will likely be close to home, he or she will get the chance to make friends who live in your neighbourhood. Finally, Belgian schools are free, while international school are private and can be very costly.

In Belgium, schools are the domain of the language communities, so Flemish schools are run by the Dutch-speaking Community, French schools by the French-speaking Community and German schools by the German-speaking Community.

All provide a high standard of education and one is not restricted to the schools of one's native language or the region in which one lives. Many French-speakers send their children to Flemish schools and vice versa.

This makes you freer to shop around for the right school – one that is close to your home, that offers a positive, safe environment, and likely one that has experience with and an open culture toward international, multilingual children. However, it also means that the ones with the best reputations fill up quickly.

Word of mouth is a great way to find out which schools in a given area are the most desirable. If you don’t have contacts in Brussels and are coming to work, the HR department where you work should be able to give you some information on schools in the city, as can your local commune.

International schools

Throughout Belgium, but especially in Brussels and the surrounding areas, there are a number of international schools that provide excellent education both in English and a variety of other languages. The Bulletin has published a full lists of those schools in two separate articles (here and here) for you to peruse. 

International schools are likely a good choice if you know your family will only be in Belgium for a short, fixed term – for example, two years. Typically, secondary school programmes follow the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme or the GSCE programme based in the UK; some offer both. These mean that when your child moves back to your home country, or to their next international school, they will likely be able to catch up with the local school systems and have an easier time adjusting to the change.

The biggest deterrent to international schools is the price. While the bill for a local Belgian school is zero, some of the international schools cost upwards of €30,000 a year. A large number of children who attend these more expensive schools do so because the businesses or organisations for which their parents work pay the tuition as part of the terms of their coming to work in Belgium.