Antwerp schools introduce city-focused curriculum: ‘Young children will learn about Brabo and the cathedral’

Antwerp’s Brabo statue and cathedral will become classroom starting points for the city’s youngest pupils under new municipal curricula. The program will begin this year in 13 schools and eventually extend across all 72 primary schools.

The curriculum targets preschoolers and first-grade pupils. Antwerp’s alderwoman for education, Nabilla Ait Daoud of the N-VA, summarized the approach as moving from “the B of Brabo to the 123 meters of the cathedral.” She said children would learn more about the city through several subjects and that the aim was to help them feel proud of Antwerp.

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We are not aiming for facts about Brabo; we use them as a starting point for achieving learning objectives.

The city says the Antwerp-focused material supplements broader Flemish minimum learning objectives. Antwerp will appear in lessons including language, mathematics, geography, history and arts education. The municipal education system said it translated the new Flemish targets into classroom practice based on the environment children in Antwerp see in 2026.

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We want children to feel proud of their city and know more about it.

The city’s landmarks are intended as teaching tools, not as an end in themselves. Curriculum project leader Kelly Thyssen gave the example of teaching the story of Brabo in preschool, then examining the statue in the Grote Markt as a source. That can lead to lessons about storytelling and how cities receive their names.

The municipal education system also linked the changes to concerns about educational quality. The Antwerp thread will continue through revised curricula for pupils from the second to sixth grades in the coming years.

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Antwerp and Brabo provide the framework for teaching things, not the objective in themselves.