ALEA SCHOOL is a new private bilingual Gymnasium in the spa town of Bad Orb in the Spessart forest (Hessen), about an hour from Frankfurt am Main. It opened in the 2025-2026 school year with its first two classes, grades 5 and 6; a new grade 5 is added each year, and the school is designed for about 200 students. The Gymnasium is a state-approved Ersatzschule for grades 5-10: it combines the Hessen curricula with the IB approach and at the end of the 2025-2026 school year was authorised as an IB World School for the MYP; according to the school, the founding classes will gain the IB Diploma in the early 2030s. About half the lessons are in English and half in German, and German remains the school language; children learn English by immersion, with teaching assistants supporting the English-taught subjects. Primary school English is enough to start. The school day runs until 16:00, followed by clubs from riding and golf to botany and yoga. The school was founded and is largely financed by the entrepreneur Henning Strauss, so fees are well below those of other private international schools.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · MYP · National programme
Languages of instruction
German, English
Languages taught
Spanish, French, Chinese
Class size
12 to 24 students per class, with classes divided into groups in some subjects
About the fees The fee is 500 EUR per month plus a meal charge and costs of excursions and extracurricular activities; no year is given for the fee. Siblings get a 25% discount. The school states that most of the costs are covered by its founder Henning Strauss. Full and partial scholarships up to grade 10 are available, mainly for families with below-average income for the Main-Kinzig-Kreis district, and a school fund helps families in difficulty.
Admissions The school admits into grade 5 (current fourth graders). Applications for the 2027-2028 school year are open until 3 November 2026: an online application with the last two school reports, a birth certificate and a motivation video of up to 3 minutes; no Gymnasium recommendation from the primary school is needed. Shortlisted children are invited in December to a getting-to-know-you day (observation in a group), in January and February to an interview with the family, in February the grade 4 half-year report must be submitted, and the decision is sent in March; there is a waiting list and later entry is possible. The school considers grades, especially for conduct and work habits, community involvement, creative hobbies, family background and the persuasiveness of the application. A child from a country with a different school calendar, for example Korea, is usually placed in grade 5, and grade 6 is considered if the child is more than three months older than most classmates. Perfect English is not needed; primary school level is enough.
Stages and year groups Grades 5-7 (2026-2027), growing to 10. The school grows by one year group per year: in the 2025-2026 school year grades 5 and 6 were running, and the state approval (genehmigte Ersatzschule) covers the lower secondary Gymnasium grades 5-10. The programme combines the Hessische Kerncurricula with the IB Middle Years Programme: the eight MYP subject groups (German as Language and Literature, English and Spanish as Language Acquisition, Gesellschaftslehre, sciences, mathematics, Performing Arts, physical and health education, and Design called ALEA OUT LOUD), plus ungraded social emotional learning (SEL). Spanish is the second foreign language from grade 7, and from grade 9 students choose a third language (French or Chinese) or robotics. About 50% of lessons are in English. The timetable on the website also shows grades 11-13; the school names the IB Diploma Programme as its goal (first graduates in the early 2030s), but it is not yet authorised for it, and the state approval covers only grades 5-10.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · MYP · authorised programmeThe school is listed in the IB register and runs the Middle Years Programme. The school is growing by one grade a year: in 2026-2027 it runs Gymnasium grades 5-7, with permission for grades 5-10; the Middle Years runs alongside the Hesse state 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
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: MYP (ages 11-16). MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 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
Clubs and activities: Nachhaltigkeit (sustainability) · Reiten (horse riding) · Sport · Kreativität (creativity) · Musik (music) · Golf · Yoga · Botanik (botany) · IT · Erste Hilfe (first aid) · Schlaufuchs News (school newspaper) · Ōwairaka Māori (Māori culture) · Dance Club
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
✓Teacher qualifications
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
✓Students per teacher or class sizein the key facts above
What the listings show: The head of school Pauline Ponti trained as a Gymnasium teacher in Marburg and Buenos Aires and taught English and Spanish at Gymnasien in Frankfurt am Main; the staff includes a native English speaker, and English-taught subjects are taught by English-speaking teachers.
The site names the head of school and nine teachers with their subjects (including the deputy head, the middle school leader and IB coordinator, and the head of school sport), two teaching assistants, two school social pedagogues and administrative staff. Teaching assistants support children in the English-taught subjects.
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
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Two school social pedagogues work at the school, one of them the inclusion officer, trained in special education; a teacher is responsible for safety and first aid. The school grounds are a smartphone-free zone, and children learn safe use of social networks, data protection and cybercrime in the ALEA OUT LOUD subject. Social emotional learning teaches conflict resolution.
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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median84 "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
Bad Orb, Germany · est. 2025 · Private