Get ready for school registration for the year 2018-2019

Have you just moved to Brussels with your family and you are trying to sort out how your children’s school system works? Here are some tips on how to successfully enroll your kids to primary school.

First of all, notice that the procedure of enrolment may vary greatly, depending on which school you choose, if it’s a Dutch-speaking one or a French-speaking one. If your children will attend a Dutch-speaking school, the process is rather easy: for primary school, brothers and sisters can be registered at the same school between the 6^th and the 17^th of November, and the children of staff of the school can be registered at the same school where their parents work in the same time frame. After that, from the 8^th of January to the 2^nd of February 2018 the parents will have to register their children through this website. For secondary school children will have to register at this website.

For French-speaking schools the procedure is different: the recording of all the demands of registrations is centralized at the Department of Public Education and is done by telephone (0800 99 855) from Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am till 1 pm. The applications to register are taken in order of arrival and are divided in three phases. During the first phase, from the 1st to the 22nd of December, the registration to the school can be done by phone; priority will be given to children who have a sibling already attending that school; to those who are in a reception class of the nursery school for the registration of the 1st nursery school in the same school (automatic registration, you do not have to phone), or to those who are in 3rd nursery school in the school where they want to be registered for the 1st primary.

During the second phase, from the 8th to the 31st of January 2018, the applications are registered in the different schools, following the priority order. During this stage the parents will be informed at once if their child is in order or on a waiting list, and from the beginning of February 2018, the school will contact the parents to proceed to the definitive registration. Lastly, from the 1st of February 2018 the applications wil be registered in the schools and the parents are obliged to appear at the fixed meeting with the school to proceed to the definitive registration of the child, otherwise the demand of registration will be cancelled and the child will not be registered.