HISTORY

EEBA AND THE Lycée Molière

The Lycée Molière was founded in 1956 by Mr. Paul Dechamps, under the name École des Devoirs.
Its primary purpose was to support pupils with their schoolwork after classes.
In 1964, the first generation of students completed their final year (equivalent to the Belgian rhétorique). The Lycée Molière thus became a school in its own right, officially recognized by the Belgian government, awarding the CESS (Certificate of Upper Secondary Education).
In 2012, Paul Dechamps handed over the leadership of the school to Félix de Merode, who built a team of enthusiastic young teachers around him.
The new team endeavored to preserve the essential elements of its institutional project, while also leading a true pedagogical renewal.
One year later, the school relocated from its historic site on Avenue Molière to a beautiful mansion on Avenue Franklin Roosevelt.

In 2013, the delegation of the Belgian government to the European Schools, with the support of the Board of Governors of the European Schools, requested the permit to create Belgium’s first accredited European school due to the high demand for places in the European Schools in Brussels.
In September 2016, the Lycée Molière, in partnership with the Scandinavian School of Brussels (SSB), opened the European section of its institution, called the European School of Bruxelles-Argenteuil (EEBA). The English-language primary section was the first to open.
From 2017, EEBA was able to provide education to secondary students whose mother tongue was English, French or Swedish.

Founded in 1973, The Scandinavian School of Brussels (SSB), was established as a non-profit school for Scandinavian expatriate families in Belgium by Ingrid Hanell Karlsson, co-founder of EEBA and current board member, with a long-term ambition to become a European School.
The school’s education blended Nordic education systems (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish) with an international outlook, and the school became one of the world’s first institutions to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in 1983.
For nearly 30 years, SSB was located on the prestigious Argenteuil Castle campus in Waterloo, welcoming students aged 2 to 19, mainly from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, with enrolment reaching around 300 students in 2015.
In 2015, SSB co-founded the European School of Brussels-Argenteuil with Lycée Molière and became the Swedish and Finnish section of EEBA. SSB permanently closed in 2020, and the site continues to host EEBA.

Today, the Fondation Reine Astrid, a non-profit association, owns the land of EEBA and is managed by a board. The Fund’s commitment is to ensure that the castle maintains its vocation as a school and can provide a unique framework for the transmission of values and education.
The ecological and human dimension is at the heart of EEBA’s projects.
The setting of the Argenteuil castle is unique, on the edge of the marvelous forest of Soignes, a stone’s throw from Brussels and in the heart of Walloon Brabant. An admirable historical, cultural, ecological and heritage setting, this site and those who occupy it are eager to develop the activities that will restore this sleeping beauty to all its charm and splendor, but in a contemporary way.