← Back to the rankingAIS Assisi International School
Assisi, Italy · est. 2009 · Private
Illustration · Assisi
AIS Assisi International School is a private school of the Fondazione Patrizio Paoletti in Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi, opened in 2009. It is a Montessori school with intensive English: a nursery in Perugia, the Casa dei Bambini for ages 2.5 to 6, a primary school (paritaria since 2010), a middle school (paritaria, since 2018) and since 2024 the Liceo Classico Internazionale STEM, which combines the classical curriculum with Latin and Greek with science, computing, economics and law. Teaching follows the Italian curriculum in Italian; English is taught by native speakers: 5 hours a week in primary plus an optional 3 hours in the afternoon. For English the school follows the Cambridge International curriculum: English as a Second Language with Checkpoint tests in primary and middle school; by the end of primary children complete Stage 5 of Cambridge Global English, level A2. The school is Cambridge certified for the primary and lower secondary stages. Primary has about 100 children, with no more than 20-21 per class.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary · Montessori · National programme
Admits from
a few months · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
Italian
Languages taught
English, Latin
Class size
no more than 20-21 students per class in primary
Admissions New students are admitted as places allow; a waiting list is kept by application date, and when a place opens the school emails the family. Current students confirm re-enrolment with a deposit by 31 January. The school invites families to open days and to individual visits by appointment. The school's principles state openness to all children regardless of sex, race, language, religion and circumstances; it does not separately address the admission of foreign students or entrance tests.
Stages and year groups Grades nido, scuola dell'infanzia, primaria 1-5, secondaria di primo grado 1-3, liceo classico 1-5. The Italian curriculum following ministry guidelines with the Montessori method and the foundation's pedagogy: nido (ages 0-3, Perugia), Casa dei Bambini (from 30 months to 6), scuola primaria paritaria (5 classes), scuola secondaria di primo grado paritaria (since 2018), Liceo Classico Internazionale STEM (since 2024; IV-V ginnasio and I-III liceo: Italian, Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, mathematics, physics, science, English, art, computing and communication, economics and law, soft skills). Cambridge International: English as a Second Language taught in English with Checkpoint tests in primary and middle school, for all students; in the liceo Cambridge subjects are planned after accreditation. Separately, after lessons, the school prepares students for Cambridge English language exams (Starters, Movers, Flyers, KET, PET, FCE).
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary · authorised programmeThe Cambridge register names the school as its centre; it teaches Cambridge Primary, Cambridge Lower Secondary. All primary and lower secondary pupils take Cambridge English as a Second Language with Checkpoint tests; other subjects follow the Italian curriculum.
school 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: Primary (ages 5-11), Lower Secondary (ages 11-14). Primary is the primary stage, ages 5 to 11: English, mathematics and science to Cambridge syllabuses. At the end of the stage a school may run the optional Checkpoint test, which is marked in Cambridge. Lower Secondary is the middle stage, ages 11 to 14, with the same optional Checkpoint test at the end.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Montessori
The pedagogy of Maria Montessori: a child chooses the activity, works at their own pace with special materials, and mixed-age groups are arranged so that older children teach the younger ones. It is used most often in the nursery and primary stages.
What this means for this school. The name Montessori belongs to nobody: any school may call itself a Montessori school, and there is no single body that checks this. There are associations that train teachers and recognise schools, but membership of them is voluntary, and our entry means exactly that the school describes itself this way. This pedagogy has no leaving certificate, so what to look at is what the school finishes with.
National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
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 hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Playground
Clubs and activities: AIS Academy · Physical Education · Chess · Theatre · Guitar · Violin · VMS Music School · Judo · Circus Activities · Erasmus+ (exchanges) · English-Language School Play
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 sizein the key facts above
The about page names the teachers of all stages. English is taught by native-speaker teachers; each nursery group has an English educator. Each primary class has a main teacher, an English teacher, a religion teacher and a PE teacher. All teachers take annual training in the foundation's pedagogy; liceo teachers, according to the school, hold master's degrees and PhDs.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school has an inclusion coordinator and an inclusion plan, a project to prevent bullying and cyberbullying and promote digital wellbeing, regulations for each stage and a complaints procedure. A support assistant for autonomy and communication works in primary.
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%)72 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 data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median95 "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 7 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