by Sanjee Goonetilake, APEEE Board member working on Wellbeing at EEB2 and at Interparents. 

When I first joined the APEEE Board in 2018, « wellbeing » was not a familiar word. Together with Dutch section board member Jeroen Janss, I approached the principal educational advisor Lea Andries who agreed that wellbeing of the students was a priority. We agreed to assess the wellbeing situation by conducting an anonymous wellbeing survey amongst the secondary students. 

A « Wellbeing Design Team » was created as a task force which involved the CdE members (Students council), Educational advisors, Teachers, APEEE representatives, parent volunteers and school management. I was a part of that Wellbeing Design Team.

The first ever anonymous wellbeing survey for a secondary school in the European school system was conducted by the Wellbeing Design Team at EEB2 in March 2019. The survey was successfully concluded with a 65% response rate.

The current assistant deputy director for secondary, Kirsten Meeus was a part of that Design Team. 

See link for an article written in June 2020 titled « Behind the scenes of the wellbeing survey: a glimpse of the Design Team of the Secondary school wellbeing survey project ».

The purpose of the survey was to map the needs, to evaluate the well-being approach and to define a customized EEB2 short-and long-term action plan. 

Based on this plan, the school took concrete action on different levels. New policies, new initiatives, new workshops, were born.

To put into practice the recommendations of the first well-being survey, the school organized an internal well-being advisory team in school year 2020-2021.  It was called the Wellbeing Advisory Board (WAB).

The main goals were:

*To overview all the actions developed and taken concerning well-being of secondary students at EEB2.

*To inform the stakeholders about the development of concrete action points.

*To give a possibility to school members to give additional information, feedback about the process or well-being related projects lié au bien-être.

*To give parents the possibility to support the whole school approach by theme-related webinars, info sessions for parents and staff members.  

The WAB gives the school the opportunity to speak in depth about student and staff well-being. The official pedagogical platform concerning well-being remains of course the CEES.

In the meanwhile, the school has developed a Mobile Device policy, Clothing policy, Flag Team and Anti-Sha policy, LGBTQIA+ charter, Good behaviour policy, EEB2 School planner, Class Time Moment (CTM) etc.

In 2025, the research group of MILO (The Multidisciplinary Institute for Teacher Education) of the VUB (Free University Brussels) collaborated with the school on a second wellbeing research project for the secondary students of our school. The aim of this study is to explore the factors that influence wellbeing within the school environment. 

Recently Interparents did a comparative data collection of all 13 European Schools for the OSG Pupil Wellbeing WG. Interparents is the umbrella organisation of the parent associations of 13 European schools. OSG stands for Office of the Secretary General. 

In 2025, the OSG created a Pupil wellbeing WG.

I added the data of EEB2 for this project that Ms Meeus kindly provided.

It appeared that EEB2 is a pioneer leading on the Wellbeing front and especially because of the example of having done the first ever anonymous wellbeing survey for the secondary school and the steps we have taken thereafter.

Other Interparents Representatives were impressed as some schools have barely done half of what EEB2 has done.

Overview of the policies implemented at BRU 2 

Anti Substance (Ab)use    yes

Mental Health   yes

Good Behaviour   yes

Anti-Bullying   yes

Child Protection update doc in process

Furthermore, the EEB2 is currently working on the evaluation of results of the second anonymous wellbeing survey conducted in 2025. 

This is only a glimpse of the process and soon the school will organise a parent evening to inform you of the latest developments and policies.

I wanted to share the exemplary work EEB2 has done on wellbeing and congratulate the school for the commitment on wellbeing since many years.

I am looking forward for the next steps.