Stepping Stones Bilingual School

A small bilingual French-English preschool and primary in a townhouse in Ixelles, founded in 2015 by Helene Nabokoff and reputed for being properly bilingual rather than English with a French label.

Mixed-age vertical teaching for three-to-six-year-olds, structured curriculum balanced with free play and Montessori-style spaces, and a terraced garden behind the building. Children with English as a first language come home using French within a year, which is the test for whether bilingual schools in Brussels actually deliver on the claim.

Teachers are praised consistently for warmth and attention to individual children. The honest caveats from families are practical: small staff means the school can feel under-resourced, parent communication is sometimes limited, and the school is inflexible on certain practices. Primary continues through to age 11 or so, after which families move on to a secondary school. Suits Ixelles and southern-commune families who want bilingual depth in a small, home-feeling setting.

• Parents single out the school as genuinely bilingual French and English, with non-French-speaking children picking up the language by immersion within a year.
• Teachers are described as warm-hearted, passionate and qualified; one parent wrote that children benefit from "constant benevolent attention" from an enthusiastic team.
• Parents specifically mention the Montessori room, music and dance lessons, and small-group sessions as standout features.
• Fees are described by parents as the most competitive among Brussels' international-leaning schools, which lands as a recurring positive in expat circles.
• One critical parent flagged communication with families as close to zero, an inflexible director, and pressure linked to understaffing; this sits as a single voice against several strongly positive reviews.
• Independent forum signal is thin; bulk of voice sits on aggregator pages. Treat the polished positive tone as small-pool data rather than mass parent verdict.