Formed 1946 Dissolved 1997 Website SCE | Preceding agency Army Education Corps Parent agency Ministry of Defence | |
Superseding agency Service Children's Education | ||
The British Families Education Service (BFES) was an organisation set up by the British Government in 1946 to run schools for the children of British military and government personnel serving in West Germany.
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History
Prior to 1946, Army Education Corps was responsible for the training of teachers (Queen's Army Schoolmistresses) to teach soldiers' children at garrisons. With the end of World War II and the establishment of the British Army on the Rhine as part of the Allied occupation of Germany, personnel were allowed to bring their families over through "Operation Union". This presented a problem for the War Office as these children needed to attend school. BFES was established by the Foreign Office in cooperation with the War Office and Ministry of Education. The first school officially opened by the BFES was Prince Rupert School, then located at the coastal town of Wilhelmshaven. LEAs were asked to aid in the recruitment of teachers to the newly opened schools in Germany.
Over the years, the BFES and its later incarnations opened schools at British Armed Forces bases around the world, such as in Hong Kong, Cyprus, Mauritius and Malaya.
Later years
During the early 1950s, BFES became the Service Children's Education Authority (SCEA), an agency overseen by the British Army. In 1989 it came under a new administration and was renamed Service Children's School (SCS) before adopting its current name Service Children's Education (SCE).