The European School Culham is a unique all-age centre of excellence delivering a European primary and secondary curriculum through at least two of the official languages of the European Union. Most children acquire literacy not only in their mother tongue or dominant language but also in one of three vehicular languages: English, French or German.
The school campus is nestled in a large meander of the River Thames near Abingdon only ten miles from the historic and beautiful university city of Oxford. Much of the school is housed in charming listed buildings erected in 1852 as a Church of England teacher training college. Its founder was Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and third son of Sir William Wilberforce, the famous slavery abolitionist.
The schooll has approximately 800 pupils, spread over 12 year groups. Consequently, pupils benefit enormously from small scale education within a very closely knit school community, organised in Language Sections, which is very supportive, both academically and pastorally. This may provide one reason why ES Culham has consistently achieved a near 100% pass-rate in the European Baccalaureate over years and also scored one of the highest Baccalaureate average of all the other European Schools.
Second Languages: From Primary to Secondary School
The Primary and Secondary Schools have five language sections: English, French and German. Pupils whose first language is not one of these may be considered for admission to one of these sections.
All pupils from Year 1 Primary onwards are taught a second language, which may be English, French or German.
After the 5-year Primary courses, pupils may be admitted to the Secondary School, the 7-year course of which leads to the European Baccalaureate, a recognized qualification for admission to Universities throughout Europe. The course includes, from Year 2, a third language and, from Year 3, certain subjects studied in the second language. A fourth language may be studied as an option from Year 4 onwards.
Future of the School beyond 2017
The school’s intergovernmental Board of Governors took the decision in 2007 to phase out the school as a Type 1 European School by 2017. This has to happen because for years the school has had insufficient numbers of children of parents either working for the European Commission or seconded by it to work at the Joint European Torus nuclear fusion project established over 30 years ago at the Culham Science Centre. As such, the European Union is no longer able to continue subsidising the education at the school.
An attempt was made between 2008 and 2010 to transform ES Culham into a national funded Academy in the English system of maintained education in order to secure the future of the school beyond 2017. However, the UK delegation formally withdrew the General Interest File and Dossier of Conformity for the Culham European Academy project at the April 2011 session of the Board of Governors of the European Schools. The transformation of the European School, Culham into an Academy will not now take place and that the phased closure of the school by 31st August 2017 will proceed in accordance with the previous decisions of the Board of Governors. As a consequence of this phased clsure, children born after 31st December 2005 cannot be considered for admission to ES Culham.
Europa School UK
In June 2011 a new trust "Europa School UK" was set up to submit an applicatiion to the UK Government for a UK state funded 'Free School' to provide European schooling initially for those children now too young to be considered for admission to the phasing out European School and to seek to continue European Schools education for those pupils still at the school in 2017. For more information on 'Europa School UK', please visit http://www.europaschooluk.org/ . If this application is successful, 'Europa School UK' hopes to share the UK Government owned site at Culham with the current European School.
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