The world is our classroom

Trips and Enrichment

At BSB we’ve always offered activities and opportunities within and beyond the curriculum to enrich the lives of our students. Our developing campus and superb facilities means that the range has continued to grow over the decades. Be it through sports, music, drama, the arts, global awareness, languages, technology, maths or science; these activities help students find their passions, make new friends, gain confidence and be courageous.

Trips have also been important to BSB over the decades. A wide variety of trips continue to take place each year as part of the curriculum, and take students around the globe. Our student trips include sports tournaments across Europe, sailing in the South of France, trips with local schools, fieldwork trips and drama festivals.

Alumni stories: now...and then!

I am the Executive Producer of ‘Casualty’ and ‘Holby City’, the two most popular medical dramas in the UK, dividing my busy work schedule between the London and Cardiff studios where the two shows are filmed. I have great fondness for my eleven years at BSB from 1978-89, very formative years. It was a hugely privileged and special experience that I probably didn’t quite appreciate until years later – the opportunity to experience different cultures and learn languages and have a truly international education in my beloved Belgium which will always be home.

I also remember that real sense of a unique community, with pupils, parents and teachers coming together so often for so many extracurricular activities and events, the focus in my case being on theatre in the ‘auditorium’ (as we called the Brel Theatre in those days). I remember the celebrations and the performance we put on when King Baudouin opened it in in 1981, just as I remember the show we put on in the gym (pre-auditorium) for the 10 th anniversary in 1980!!! I cannot believe that was 40 years ago and that we are now celebrating our 50 th .

In retrospect I really see what extraordinary facilities the school had and still has; the opportunity to not only act in, but also write, produce and direct plays in that amazing theatre with incredible equipment, lighting, stage management and costume, operated by those devoted parents and teachers giving up their time and extraordinary talents in our wonderful creative community – there is no doubt in my mind that this set me up to ultimately be able to do what I do today. The nice thing is, when I visit Brussels to see my old teachers, I still feel part of that community, the years falling away as we catch up – and I so treasure that.

Memories: Those were halcyon days at BSB, both for the people I knew there and for our lifestyle as Europeans, a concept that currently feels distant and unreachable. I still have vivid memories about classes and teachers (we were Brenda Despontin’s first pupils after she left teacher training); break time table-tennis; productions with Ken Woollard (pre-theatre, held in the refectory with giant grey Lego blocks as a stage) plus football and especially athletics with Jim Graham.

Now: Reaching my ‘big birthday’ recently (at the age of 10 in 1970, I remember being told I was the 13th pupil to join BSB) I’ve slowed my pressured photography work to the point where I no longer tear around the world pursuing stories for magazines and projects for companies, but now photograph more national and local issues in London - adding to my 30-year image archive. My 60+ London travel pass has been very liberating, allowing me to explore parts of the capital I’ve never photographed. The attached picture is from the large People’s Vote Brexit March in London in 2019.