The School was founded in The Hague in 1931 by a New Zealander, Gwen Brunton-Jones, and was called The English School. There were 4 teachers and about 20 pupils and they were accommodated in a Dutch school on the van Diepenburchstraat. The school closed in 1940 with the invasion of The Netherlands and was re-opened in 1948 by Nancy Macdona, a previous member of staff. Two rooms were rented in the Jan van Nassaustraat, and 12 pupils and 4 teachers formed the foundations of the present British School.
By 1952 numbers had reached 60 and new premises were found in a Dutch school on the Adriaan Goekooplaan. Expansion continued and Miss Macdona recruited a Co-Principal, Mrs Phyllis Donaldson, to take responsibility for the growing number of older children. In 1953 there was another move to Doornstraat, and then in 1954 the School was merged with the American and French Schools as part of the International School project. This turned out to be a catastrophe and the school soon withdrew from it. That meant that with about 80 children and half a dozen teachers they had no premises. To help out, the chaplain of the Anglo-American Church, allowed them to move into his church-hall on the Riouwstraat, and there they remained until 1959. In that year, at last, the School bought its own property, ‘Duinroos’ on the Tapijtweg.
With expansion continuing, a Senior Division was opened in 1966 in Parkweg and, four years later, a Middle Division in van Stolklaan. By 1972 the School had grown to over 500 pupils. The Senior Division broadened the programme of studies on offer and began to enjoy significant success at Advanced Level with the result that more and more pupils stayed on into the Sixth Form after O-levels, instead of returning to boarding school in the UK. In the School’s name was changed to The British School in The Netherlands.
Two years later, the Senior School moved to Voorschoten, into purpose-built premises opened by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. The Junior School remained at Tapijtweg and the Infant School had to move to rented classrooms in a Dutch school in Leidschendam. By now, as well, the school had taken over the management of a small ‘dépendance’ in the northern town of Assen where a number of English-speaking Shell families lived.
By this time, although the School was called The British School, it had a very international pupil population with children from some 50 different countries. In 1985 the provision for Teaching English as a Second Language was extended to the Senior School, and the BSN was now able to accept children of twelve and thirteen years of age who were unable to speak English on arrival and successfully take them through GCSE and A-level examinations. This further boosted numbers, and by the late 1980s there were over 1200 pupils within the whole School. In 1990, a large piece of farmland with an 18th century farmhouse, adjacent to the Senior School, was purchased. This made possible the addition of two sports fields, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, a dance/drama studio and a home for the Principal. The facilities were further enhanced when HRH Prinses Margriet opened a new Science, Technology and Music Building in 1992.
In September 1997 a splendid new, award-winning Junior School opened its doors to 700 children aged 3 to 11 years of age. The completion of this building allowed the BSN to combine the Nursery, Infant and Junior Schools on one site in The Hague. The new school was officially opened by HRH Prins Willem Alexander in November 1997.
The notion of bringing these three schools together permanently on one site was not to last, however. The popularity of the new Junior School, along with the buoyant Dutch economy, led to a significant increase in pupil numbers in The Hague and two major new developments were embarked upon: firstly, in July 1999, a three storey school building just a couple of minutes’ walk from the Junior School, was purchased and, after extensive refurbishment, became a new Foundation School, which opened in September 1999. (Major central services – Human Resources, Accounts, Information Services, Marketing and Communnity Serices are also housed here along with the Language Centre which runs courses for adults). The second development was in 2003 when the opportunity arose to take over an unused Dutch school on the Diamanthorst nearby, enabling us to have two separate Junior Schools.
Meanwhile, out at Voorschoten, the Senior School was having its own problems with space, and some very difficult decisions needed to be confronted. The new Science, Technology and Music block was only seven years old, but in order to put the Senior School in a position where it could truly keep up with the projected growth of the future, Trevor Rowell, the new Principal, and the school board took the brave decision that an entirely new Senior School needed to be built. And so in June 2001 work started on this enormous project. The new buildings were opened by Queen Beatrix in October 2003.
Following the opening of the new Senior School the BSN continued to keep its eyes open for future expansion - should demand require it. With this foresight the school managed to aquire a large plot of land in the new Leidschenveen area of the city and is now busy with building plans to develop a third Junior School campus together with provision for Day Care for the 0-3s.