Graduation: Congratulations and Celebrations

Royal plans for BSB’s sports site

Our history uncovered

Every day we are blessed to come to a school with such a modern, purpose-built campus and state-of-the-art facilities. These facilities were of course upgraded in 2016 when the most ambitious project in the school’s 51-year history was realised with the building of the new swimming pool, gym, and sports hall. In addition to that, the revamping of the outdoor sports pitches in 2020 continued the school’s history of new building developments, technological investments, and improvements.

But did you know that the idea for our sports facilities was conceived over 200 years ago, long before the school itself was created? in the museum’s basement showed that the King also had plans at the time for the site on which our school now sits.

“Many of the attractions and grand buildings of Brussels were located in the very centre of the city, such as the museum of Belgian history,” says Maarten Couttenier, an expert in history and politics at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. “But then Leopold had plans for expanding the city which started with the creation of the Parc du Cinquantenaire and continued with the avenues leading out of the city which he planned to use for urbanisation and the further expansion of Brussels.”

Back in 2014, the Museum of Central Africa uncovered a set of old plans that King Leopold II had for this site once he had completed his architectural development of Tervuren. Despite a questionable history internationally, the monarch known as The Builder King, certainly had a clear vision for Brussels and its surroundings. After completing the long boulevard which reaches Tervuren from the outskirts of eastern Brussels, King Leopold wanted his builders to create a school close to the Colonial Palace. And not just any school but an École Mondiale, a world school, which would be a place of academic excellence and architectural grandeur.

It is often assumed that King Leopold’s architects, once they had completed their development of Avenue Tervuren, planned to finish their work by building the museum and the royal palace that neighbour BSB in the rolling parklands and forest of Tervuren. However, the historical records discovered It is well-documented that BSB is located on the very site that the King had first identified for this but what the uncovered plans also revealed was that Leopold and his architects had planned to build the École Mondiale’s sports facilities on the exact spot that our state-of-the-art sports centre is now.

“From the plans, we see that on that site, Leopold had ambitions to build sports infrastructure for the École Mondiale which included a cycling velodrome and a horse racing course,” says Maarten Couttenier. “In the end, the site on which BSB now sits was deemed too marshy and the plans for the École Mondiale were amended to locate it next to the Colonial Palace which is now the Africa Museum.”

So, when the current sports complex was created, it not only fulfilled the vision of Sir Dick Pantlin who, in 1972 outlined his plans for ‘a big gym and a swimming pool’ in a memo to fellow founders ‘Messrs Firman, Goodman and Humphries’, but completed a idea conceived almost two centuries before that by The Builder King.

So, while we can take pride in all that has been achieved both structurally and academically here at BSB over the past 51 years, we can also marvel at the fact that the very concept of our school – and our amazing sports facilities - is rooted in a royal decree issued in a bygone age, that until very recently we didn’t even know about!

Graduation

Congratulations and celebrations

Every year, the British School of Brussels (BSB) honours its graduating students in a wonderful ceremony which lauds their achievements and brings family and friends together in a day of celebration. It is an important and much-loved annual tradition at BSB and, despite the many challenges that we have faced over the past two years, the school has managed to stage the event even when hosting gatherings of such size and complexity has proved to be logistically demanding.

In 2020, due to the health restrictions that had been brought in a few months previously, those parents who attended arrived at staggered times to ensure social distancing regulations were observed, and were seated on hay bales in small groups on the lawns by the car park. Despite this, the joy in the warm summer air was palpable and, after a prolonged period of confinement, there was an ecstatic buzz of excitement crackling between groups as everyone happily gathered, albeit masked and socially distanced, in an emotional atmosphere to honour and celebrate.

Students, staff and family members showed typical BSB resilience and spirit in the face of adversity to create a truly heart-warming event at a time of such adversity; a show of determination and courage that was reflected in the speech by then Co-School President Lucas who delivered a stafffocused message, saying: “thank you for the sacrifices you have made to get us to where we are today. Your dedication to our future has not gone unnoticed.” So as not to exclude anyone, the presentations from the Co-Student Presidents and the Leadership Team were live-streamed to those parents at home who could not attend. Sue Munday and James Willis, the Co-Heads of Post-16 at the time, commented after the 2020 ceremony: “We were absolutely thrilled to have been able to hold such a wonderful event that was very much in-keeping with our BSB traditions and community ethos. There was a time when we were thinking that the students would miss out this year – instead, it was one of the best ever!”

By the time the Class of 2021 were ready to celebrate, the restrictions on large scale gatherings had begun to ease, allowing for a huge audience to attend the ceremony under glorious sunshine on the Tintin playground. Distancing measures were still in place and face masks were still required at times but the fact that so many more people could come onto campus compared to the previous year added to the triumphant atmosphere.