British Education Korea

A homegrown British curriculum group founded in 2010 and now running five campuses across Seoul, Bundang and Dongtan from age 2 through 18.

BEK started with a Pre-Prep in Bundang in 2010, added Dongtan in 2011, and has since grown to BEK Secondary in Gangnam plus BEK Prep and BEK Lodge feeder sites. The programme follows the English National Curriculum with Cambridge IGCSEs and A Levels in the senior years, and the group reports 73 percent A* grades at IGCSE in 2024. COBIS Patron status is the main external accreditation marker.

Parent voice runs warm. Long-tenure families talk about a recognisably British classroom feel, small year groups and children who are visibly happy on the bus, and they tend to contrast it with Korean-style English programmes rather than with the larger international names. The trade-off is scale. Facilities and cohort breadth are leaner than the Songdo or Seocho heavyweights.

• Reddit and the Korean teaching forums treat British Education Korea (BEK) primarily as a hagwon trading on a school identity, with sustained warnings to teachers and visa-holders.
• One commenter wrote: 'Under accredited schools you have British Education Korea. I know for a fact they have no accreditation... They are licensed as a hakwon.' The same post says staff teach 'illegally on E2 visas,' that the operation was previously known as Eton House and was 'shutdown by immigration' in 2017 with teachers deported and banned from re-entering Korea, after which it rebranded.
• Another teacher said BEK is 'the reason I have a 5 year ban from Korea' after a 2017 immigration raid and described the school name in Korean as still saying hagwon.
• A 2024 r/Internationalteachers commenter said the legitimate registration with the Korean Office of Education is the test that matters, and that 'fake international schools have names like British Education Korea' and use the visa type that triggered the prior crackdown.
• One r/Internationalteachers reply was blunt: 'Right. Avoid BEK, British "Education" Korea, at all costs.'
• An ISD teacher review from late 2025 rates the school overall, calling it 'chaotic and inconsistent with extremely high turnover rate amongst staff' and rating administration and atmosphere 'terrible' while still praising teachers as 'very good.' US military-base parents in Osan have considered it as a daycare option after the rebrand from Eton House.