European School, Culham

European School, Culham

Coordinates: 51°39′22″N 1°15′28″W / 51.65611°N 1.25778°W / 51.65611; -1.25778

The European School in Culham, Oxfordshire, is one of fourteen European Schools around Europe and the only one in United Kingdom and currently has around 800 nursery/primary (4–11 years old) and secondary (11–18 years old) students.

It is sited on the grounds of the former Culham College, a teacher training college established in 1852 by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. The Gothic Revival architect Joseph Clarke designed its buildings, and Sherwood and Pevsner described them as "institutional Victorian Gothic at its grimmest".

As of October 12, 2003, the student population of the European School, Culham was 884 — of which 88 were in the nursery school, 343 in the primary school and 453 in the secondary school.

The European School Culham school newspaper was set up in 1994 as the "Culham Oracle". Recently it changed name to BIAS.

There are five language sections: German (DP or DS), French (FP or FS), Italian (IP or IS), Dutch (NP or NS) and English (EP or ES).

Each language has its own year group:

• Nursery
• Primary ("X"P)
• Secondary ("X"S)

For nursery there are two year groups. For Primary there are five year groups ("X"P1 to "X"P5)and for secondary there are seven ("X"S1 to "X"S7). With the number of students in the Dutch and Italian sections decreasing these groups are usually grouped with the English classes for Science, Sports and Maths. L1 is still taught to the semi-merged groups in mother tongue.

The school's future is currently under discussion. These schools were formed primarily with the aim of serving Commission's employees where EU projects were present. JET/EFDA, in Culham, is currently scheduled for closure with the project moving to Cadarache, France around 2016/17. Parents and the local community are seeking to transform the school in order to safeguard its future as an associate European school. Details on the related activities can be accessed from the CESPA or the English Trust for European Education ETEE sites (see below).