School

expat1976 wrote:

My wife and i are looking at the prospect of moving to Brussel with our 2 small girls age 9 and 11 years old. They are in the 4th and 6th grade in the portuguese system. Is there a big difference between the public school contra the private school or semi private school. How much does it cost in the privat - public - semi privat school? We are planning to move in Jun /july 2018. any information would be appriciated.
patrick

Public schools are of 4 types :
1) OFFICIAL communal (45%) run by the commune (municipality)
2) OFFICAL French community (5%) run direcly by the French Community
3) FREE religious (45%) nearly all Catholic, a few Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, run by lay board for that faith, RE is obligatory2 hours  out of 32 hours per week in all schools from age 6-18 and only choice of religion in the faith schools is that faith, in all other schools, children are segregated for those 2 hours.
4) FREE non religious aligned (5%) run by lay secular board, most follow single methods of teaching style but not all, some charge top-up fees of 1k-5k but not all charge these fees.

The terms OFFICIAL and FREE don't really mean anything, other than OFFICIAL has control of politicians whereas FREE has control of a lay board, when it comes to complaints, a generalization is the latter is far easier and more receptive to listening. FREE has nothing to do with costs.

Private schools are all fee paying and start from 10k-35k and most are in English, some German, Japanese, French.

You are best to look at where work is and choose a convenient area for work within your budget and French system will be best for you for many reasons, unless you have enough money for private school. Bear in mind some areas are easier to find places than others. Where do you fancy living?