The Europa School UK is an all-through, free school and IB world school located in

Culham Culham is a village and civil parish in a bend of the River Thames, south of Abingdon in Oxfordshire. The parish includes Culham Science Centre and Europa School UK (formerly the European School, Culham, which was the only Accredited Europea ...

near Abingdon in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

. It was founded in 2012 by stakeholders of the

European School, Culham The European School, Culham (ESC) was one of the fourteen European Schools and the only one in the United Kingdom. Located in Culham near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. It was founded in 1978 for the purpose of providing an education to the children ...

and subsumed the former school's campus upon its closure in 2017. It now offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and Middle Years Programme in the secondary section and a bilingual curriculum in primary with English and one of German, French or Spanish. From its foundation until 31 August 2021, it was the only

Accredited European School An Accredited European School is a type of international school under national jurisdiction and financing, within the member states of the European Union, which have been approved, by the Board of Governors of the international organisation "The ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. This status was lost due to

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

History

Following the announcement of the closure of the

due to the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

's decision to redeploy staff based at the Oxfordshire-based

Joint European Torus The Joint European Torus, or JET, is an operational magnetically confined plasma physics experiment, located at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK. Based on a tokamak design, the fusion research facility is a joint European pro ...

(JET) fusion energy research programme to its successor programme,

ITER ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Earth ...

, in

Cadarache Cadarache is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes the CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of the 10 research centres of the French Commission of Atomic and Alternative En ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, stakeholders founded a charitable organisation, the "English Trust for European Education", in 2008, to investigate a means of continuing to provide the school's multilingual and multicultural curriculum, which culminates in the bilingual diploma, the

European Baccalaureate The European Baccalaureate (or EB) is a bilingual educational diploma, which certifies the completion of secondary studies in a European School or Accredited European School by the Board of Governors of the intergovernmental organisation, "The E ...

. This resulted in the founding of the Europa School, UK, as an Accredited European School, which opened its doors on 21 September 2012 in a ceremony attended by Lord Hill of Oareford and John Howell MP. The school's Accredited European School status differed from the European School, Culham it replaced, in that its financing and administration requirements must be dealt with under the national educational framework, rather than directly by the intergovernmental organisation of the

European Schools The European Schools ( la, Schola Europaea) is an intergovernmental organisation, which has established, finances, and administers a small group of multilingual international schools, bearing the title "European School", which exist primarily t ...

. Initially only the

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...

and nursery sections of the school operated until the formal closure of the European School, Culham in August 2017, where after the

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

began to operate and the school began offering the European Baccalaureate programme. However, following the June 2016 UK referendum in favour of leaving the European Union (EU), the UK signalled its intent to withdraw from the Convention Defining the Statute of the European Schools; the enacted

Brexit withdrawal agreement The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Uni ...

provides for the UK to leave the intergovernmental organisation, "the

" — a distinct entity from the EU — at the end of the academic year ongoing at the end of the transition period. Furthermore, regulations of the European Schools restrict its Board of Governors to only providing accredited status to schools operating within the EU. The UK's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020 prevented the organisation from renewing the Europa School UK's accredited status beyond its current period. Uncertainty over how long the school could continue to offer the European Baccalaureate programme during the protracted withdrawal negotiations led the Europa School UK to cease offering the European Baccalaureate following the 2021 graduation, and to secure accreditation to offer the

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...

from the 2020–2021 academic year onwards.

Legal status

The Europa School UK is defined as a "free school" academy under English law. It is accredited by the International Baccalaureate Organisation to offer the IBDP. It was also formerly accredited by the Board of Governors of the European Schools as an Accredited European School, but that status was lost on 31 August 2021.

Notes

References

External links

* {{authority control Accredited European Schools Educational institutions established in 2012 Free schools in England Primary schools in Oxfordshire Secondary schools in Oxfordshire 2012 establishments in England