L'histoire et les racines de l'EEBA

The Roots: 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 Queen Astrid Foundation, a non-profit association, owns the EEBA site and is managed by a board of directors.
The Foundation’s commitment is to ensure that the château retains its educational vocation, offering a unique setting for the transmission of values and education.
The ecological and human dimensions are at the heart of the school’s projects.
Situated on the edge of the sumptuous Forêt de Soignes, a stone’s throw from Brussels and in the heart of Walloon Brabant, Château d’Argenteuil offers an exceptional setting. A veritable showcase of history, culture, ecology and heritage, this site aspires to develop activities that will restore the charm and splendor of this sleeping beauty, with a resolutely contemporary approach.