← Back to homeAIS Altea International School
L'Alfàs del Pi, Spain · est. 2012 · Private
Illustration · L'Alfàs del Pi
AIS is a private British school on the Costa Blanca, opened in 2012 for a single class of six-year-olds and grown to 270 pupils in 22 classrooms across seven buildings; it bought its present site, with its historic buildings, in 2016. The curriculum is British but delivered through Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy and mindfulness practice: the school says plainly that academic foundation, artistic expression and socio-emotional development carry equal weight. Teaching is in English, and the leaving examinations are IGCSE at 16 and A-Levels at 18, with validation for the Spanish and other systems. The day ends with clubs at 15:45 - football, capoeira, family fitness - and the school sets out its extracurricular programme in five strands: sport, creative and performing arts, academic enrichment, language acquisition, and activities shared with parents. The main thing a parent needs to know: A-Levels here are priced per subject, not per year, so the cost of the senior stage depends on how many subjects a pupil takes.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $7 456–8 304 a year
6 600–7 350 EUR
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees The annual fee depends on the stage and is paid in ten instalments from September to June. The primary stage (Class 1-5, that is Year 2-6) is 6600 EUR a year, with an annual registration fee of 525 EUR, a one-off deposit of 1320 EUR (two monthly payments) and a one-off administration fee of 100 EUR. The secondary stage (Class 6-10, Year 7-11) is 7350 EUR a year, with registration of 609 EUR and a deposit of 1470 EUR. The A-Level stage (Class 11-12, Year 12-13) is priced per subject: 3087 EUR a year per subject in three termly instalments, with a 10 per cent reduction on a second subject and 20 per cent on a third. The fee covers administration, insurance and school materials - exercise books, coloured pencils, craft, art and gardening materials and library books; it does not cover reading books and workbooks or specialist materials for maths and art. The deposit is returned on request after a pupil leaves. One week of summer school is included in the annual fee for enrolled families.
Admissions Admission starts with an online application: the school replies with an invitation to an in-person or online interview, after which parents are invited to the school and the process continues there. The school names no separate exams. No English is required up to Class 6: in the school's words, children can enrol without English until Class 6, while entering Class 7 requires a basic level of spoken English and understanding. The school describes no special procedure for children from abroad.
Stages and year groups Grades Class 1-5 (Year 2-6) - Class 11-12 (Year 12-13), ages 6 to 18. The stages run right through: primary is Class 1-5, that is Year 2-6 in British counting; secondary is Class 6-10, that is Year 7-11, ending with IGCSE; the senior stage is Class 11-12, that is Year 12-13, with A-Levels. Extracurricular activities start at 15:45.
Address Cami de l'Ermita 12
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmeschool is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: Twenty-two classrooms in seven buildings on a site bought in 2016: historic buildings refurbished for the school, in a natural setting, with the day interwoven with outdoor activity.
Clubs and activities: Football · Capoeira · Family fitness
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
The AIS Summer School runs in July with English immersion, from 9 to 14 hours, in three groups: ages 4-5, 6-9 and 13 and over. A week costs 130 euros, with a 5 per cent discount for the first sibling and 10 per cent for the second. It is a day camp with no accommodation.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
The school publishes no staff list or teacher numbers. On staffing it gives one share: 80 per cent of the teachers are native English speakers and the rest are bilingual. All lessons except languages, gardening and arts and crafts are taught in English.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)85 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data60 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data67 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country