Brussels again!

In the past few weeks we have found ourselves in Brussels but haven't actually had a chance to look around. Our visits have been for meetings and to go to particular places of interest in our course.

Last Thursday we spent most of the day with the staff from the Catholic Education Service - Primary section. With the Catholic sector being the largest in Belgium they have over 1500 schools to service and as the money is funded directly to the schools from the state the schools can then choose to fund the CEO 1% of their budget for their services. Or they can choose not to!

The staff were very welcoming, had spent a considerable amount of time preparing for our visit and were very eager to learn about the Australian education story. A very productive and hopeful day after our other visit which see Catholic schools as very secular and almost no different to government schools at home.

The afternoon was spent visiting the Chapel of Disclosure located at the De la Salle headquarters in Brussels. The Chapel is a bare place with a floor of sand that allows the sacred to be brought by those who enter. A very moving place.