The European Schools are part of a rather distinct education system. Their main purpose is to meet the educational needs of children of officials of the European institutions. During the 1950s a group of officials of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), having moved country to take up their posts, felt that it was inappropriate to move their children into a totally different education system, with a different cultural tradition and language. They wanted their children to be educated in their mother tongue and to receive a similar education to that of the country they were from. This was considered important not only for the preservation of their children's national culture and heritage, but also to ease their children's integration back into their native education system, should they return home. Besides the aim to preserve pupils' national heritage and identities, the schools are also seen as the ideal place in which to foster 'young Europeans' by developing in them a sense of 'European identity' or as Schuman put it 'to Europeanise without de-nationalising'. This objective is encapsulated in the words of Monnet and sealed into a foundation stone of each of the schools. These words declare that while all pupils will learn their own language and about their own literature and history, they will also learn to speak other languages and learn about other European cultures. Furthermore, by mixing with children of all different European nationalities, they will learn to respect each other, live together in harmony and understand that they belong together. Particularly interesting about this statement is the part that maintains that pupils 'will become in mind Europeans' and will 'bring into being a united a thriving Europe.' It is clear from this set of aims that developing a European identity in its pupils is an important objective of the European Schools. This study investigates how the secondary section of the European School at Culham attempts to develop in its pupils a sense of European identity. In particular, the study looks at the school's organisational features (including how these children from diverse European cultures and languages are educated together), its curriculum, extra-curricular activities and the attitudes and perceptions of some of its teachers. A series of ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and senior staff in order to discover their views on aspects of the school that contribute towards developing pupils' sense of European identity. The data gathered was checked against curriculum documents where possible and supplemented to a small degree with fieldnotes from classroom and general observation.The research findings reveal that above all else, it is the nature and organisational features of the school that encourages pupils to develop a European identity. Pupils at the school come from pro-European, multilingual families or families that have some direct link with the EU. They are put into 'language sections', where they receive most of their education, yet the school provides many opportunities for these children from diverse backgrounds to integrate and interact with one another. Teachers at the school believe that it is through such interactions, which take place both in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities that pupils learn about each others' cultures and languages and develop a feeling of being European.