Welcome to the BFES-SCEA-Association
The one Association for all who currently work, or have worked, with Service Children's Education abroad.
Are you currently working as a teacher or a locally employed member of staff, have you recently left, or will you soon be leaving SCE? Have you worked for any of SCE's predecessors, such as SCS, SCEA or BFES? If so then you are eligible to join.
This is an opportunity to keep up with friends, present and former colleagues. It will allow you to keep up with what is going on in SCE around the world. There are also opportunities for you to enjoy professional and social functions. Please consider seriously joining the BFES-SCE Association! A copy of the quarterly newsletter is sent to every SCE school.
By joining the BFES-SCE Association you will be entitled and enabled to:
- Maintain and revive friendships
- Attend annual re-unions, local and national
- Have access to the growing archive stored at the London University's Institute of Education.
- Receive the termly Newsletter of the Association, and contribute to it.
To join, or find the membership form, click on 'home' and 'membership'
To find newsletters - for latest - click 'home' [on left side of homepage menu bar, above this notice] and you'll find latest newsletter [member password protected]
for other recent newsletters - click 'more' [right side of homepage menu bar]
for older newsletters [#30 to #38] - click 'Old Newsletters' [on homepage menu bar]
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Updated 7th September 2019
Item below re Cambridge lunch - today! and Sandhurst dinner and AGM on 5th October
Updated 31 July 2019
Stuart Dyke, RIP 24 July
Updated 20 July 2019
booking details of upcoming events - 7th September and 5th October 2019 added to 'Noticeboard'
Updated 13 July 2019
new photo of DH Conference approx 2000 (in Gallery 2)
rationalisation of pages (some content moved from 'Home' to 'Gallery 2')
new photo Dhekelia staff 1995
new class photo from Bielefeld School, 1985
broken links removed
Latest News - see also 'Noticeboard'
(drop down under 'Home')
Cambridge lunch was today - 7th September. Your webmaster regrets he is out of the country, so cannot attend. However, I hope all went well and any photos and reports can be placed on the web-site if available!
BFES/SCE Association 2019 AGM and association lunch will be held at Sandhurst Military Academy, Berkshire onSaturday 5th October 2019
see dropdown 'Noticeboard' on this page for more information
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Stuart Dyke
I regret to inform colleagues that Stuart Dyke, formerly a member of the Inspection Advisory Service (retired from SCE 1997) died last week, peacefully and after a very short illness. Stuart was married to Jane Clarke-Dyke and they had lived on the Isle of Wight, since Jane retired from MoD Schools in 2017. Stuart's funeral will take place on the island on Wednesday 7th August 2019 at1545hrs. If there are members and friends wishing to contact Jane and lacking an address - please contact Mike Chislett, webmaster.
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Visit to the Defence Sixth Form College Welbeck
Our Chair - Ken Jones - has secured an agreement that we can both have a visit and hold our 2020 AGM at Welbeck College in October 2020. The plan is that we have an initial visit around the college hosted by students, have our AGM and then finish with lunch, again hosted by the students, with members paying for the lunch. Further details will be published in the Spring 2020 Issue of the Newsletter .
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Gutersloh Music Centre hosted a BFG Closing Celebration on Saturday 22nd June
One of the highlights was this specially written song:
Sung here on June 2019 by choirs of Attenborough, Bishopspark, Bielefeld, Haig and John Buchan Schools .... Dave Reeves (Music teacher, Gutersloh Music Centre) composed this song especially .... the words give a pocket history of BFG and its schools. More than 90 known BFG and BAOR school locations are mentioned.
We have a video - but we are not sharing this for now, until we are sure there are no issues regarding permissions. However, we also have a great sound recording (thank you BFBS) .... click the 'go' triangle on the sound bar below.
One of the highlights was this specially written song:
Sung here on June 2019 by choirs of Attenborough, Bishopspark, Bielefeld, Haig and John Buchan Schools .... Dave Reeves (Music teacher, Gutersloh Music Centre) composed this song especially .... the words give a pocket history of BFG and its schools. More than 90 known BFG and BAOR school locations are mentioned.
We have a video - but we are not sharing this for now, until we are sure there are no issues regarding permissions. However, we also have a great sound recording (thank you BFBS) .... click the 'go' triangle on the sound bar below.
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Luncheon meeting BFES/Association lunch - 7th September 2019, Cambridge ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING BFES/SCE Association 2019 AGM and association lunch will be held at Sandhurst Military Academy, Berkshire on Saturday 5th October 2019 see dropdown 'Noticeboard' on this page for more information Good homes wanted before they become firewood! Your webmaster was able to liberate the plaques and boards below from the 'portacabins' at Upavon, late in 2015. They are too large for our archives and good homes are sought. Offers please to the web-master. Delivery almost anywhere in UK may be possible. stop press - the 'Alex Harvey opening of SCE in 1997' has been adopted - thank you Tom N-M 
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How to add to the BFES Archives .....
when schools close, history is lost unless documentary material is collected, boxed and given to us! We (or at least, Walter - our archivist) - sift and catalogue, then transport the priceless records to the Institute of Education, in London. Once safely there, any future historian and ex-teachers, pupils, parents, can gain access, subject to data protection rules. Here are some examples from Blankenhagen's closure in 2016. Blankenhagen Primary School, had previously been named Andrew Humphrey School. When RAF Gutersloh became Princess Royal Barracks, the school changed name; Griffin School at RAF Wildenrath took on the title of 'Andrew Humphrey'.
when schools close, history is lost unless documentary material is collected, boxed and given to us! We (or at least, Walter - our archivist) - sift and catalogue, then transport the priceless records to the Institute of Education, in London. Once safely there, any future historian and ex-teachers, pupils, parents, can gain access, subject to data protection rules. Here are some examples from Blankenhagen's closure in 2016. Blankenhagen Primary School, had previously been named Andrew Humphrey School. When RAF Gutersloh became Princess Royal Barracks, the school changed name; Griffin School at RAF Wildenrath took on the title of 'Andrew Humphrey'.
Staff Photograph 1978
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Staff Photograph 2016
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Much of the information on this web-site and in the Association's Newsletters comes from the attics/albums of ex-teachers' own memorabilia which they have kindly donated. This history of our schools eventually makes its way into our archives held at the IoE at University College London.
Below are two examples of such donations, from Marian Andrews (Nee Riley) of her colleagues at Marlborough First School, Osnabruck; 1981 - 1884.
Marlborough Staff May 1982
Peter Owens, Kate Johnson, Sheila McCafferty, Charlotte Wilkinsin, Marion Riley, Mary Brennan, Eileen Hilton, Glyn Pascoe.
Maria Wardlaw, Roisin Wellard, Patsy Hope, Eric Wilson,?, Anne Bull, Jinty Cowie |
Marlborough Staff May 1984
??, ??, Sheila McCafferty, Marian Riley, Paula Clarke, Lesley Bayley, Sue King, Dawn Turner, Patsy Hope, Viv Evans, Joan Hunt, Peter Owens, Jinty Cowie, Anne Robbins, Moira Nicholl.
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Summer 2015 saw the closures of the schools in Hohne/Fallingbostel Garrisons.
A significant quantity of memorabilia, documents and photographs were collected and sent to the Association's
archivist. Much of this has now been sorted, annotated, catalogued and deposited in the Association's archives at the
Institute of Education, University College London.
The final box of material from Gloucester School, Hohne was deposited on in November 2015.
Some examples are included on our Archives page.
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Staff of Gloucester School, Hohne, 1996
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Association Committee
The following members were nominated, seconded and unanimously elected to the Committee in Autumn 2018, to serve for the next twelve months:
Chairman - Ken Jones
Vice-Chair - Walter Lewis
Events Co-ordinator - Sue Adams,
Treasurer - Janet Bradley,
Secretary - Lynn Marshall,
Archivist - Walter Lewis.
Website Manager - Mike Chislett,
Membership Secretaries - Hugh & Christine Ritchie,
Newsletter Editor - Tom Nielsen-Marsh
This photograph, 1964 Hohne Ladies Teachers' mess, and some others displayed on the Archives pages, is taken from " Tommy Atkins' Children" - the story of the Education of Army's Children, 1675 - 1970, by Colonel NT St John Williams BA, HMSO 1071
John Trevelyan, the founding Director of BFES is quoted in 1946 as follows:-
'Never in the history of education endeavour have people chosen so bad a time and so bad a place to begin an entirely new venture with so little to meet so many possibilities.'
This statement is made on the establishment of the British Families Education Service, BFES, Germany, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
" The new Director of BFES was John Trevelyan who was a brilliant administrator and very capable of handling Commanding Officers to secure buildings on army sites which would make satisfactory schools. We were able in the first year (1947) to establish, with the help of the army, having schools form Flensburg on the Danish border to Frankfurt in the south and Berlin in the east." - extract from the brief memories of Arabella Kurdi (nee Pallister). More on the Archives page.
The Association's Archive Page
- contains multifarious items, including documents, photographs, records, memorabilia and artefacts. This archive is constantly being added to and is proving of great interest to historians as well as to members of the Association.
As schools close, we ask staff in those schools to send log books, photographs, documents, etc to the Association's Archivist as part of the close-down procedure. This material has a significant historical interest for the future.
Your web-master has moved a number of items from this section to other pages of this site - mainly photographs to 'Archive 2', so that nothing is lost as I gradually re-organise this wonderful web-resource.
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Schools operating today - Go to the 'Schools' Page and open the link to give you access to all the schools websites showing how they operate today and catch up with their day to day activities. All the schools in the Hohne/Fallingbostel area closed in July 2015. They have contributed a significant amount of material to the Association's Archives. Much of this has been deposited with our professional archivist colleagues at the Institute of Education, University College, London.
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Committee Meeting - Union Jack Club - London 2015
How to make contact with Committee Members
Membership Secretary: Click here
Archivist: Click here
General Matters: Association Secretary: Click here
Website Manager: Click here
Just click on the relevant link to open a new e-mail message.
If you wish to join the Association, please click join us
Archivist: Click here
General Matters: Association Secretary: Click here
Website Manager: Click here
Just click on the relevant link to open a new e-mail message.
If you wish to join the Association, please click join us