← Back to homeAljezur International School
Aljezur, Portugal · est. 2010 · Private
Illustration · Aljezur
The school opened in 2010 at the invitation of the Aljezur municipality, worked for three years from premises in the town and in September 2013 moved to a converted farmhouse five kilometres south. It is a full-day school for teenagers aged eleven to eighteen: lessons run from 9.30 to 16.00 with ten half-hour lessons and three breaks, and on Thursdays, club day, the coach leaves at 17.30. It has about eighty students among whom twenty-six nationalities are represented, follows the UK curriculum adapted to life in Portugal, prepares students for Cambridge IGCSE, and teaches AS and A level in small groups or one to one. Lessons are in English: the curriculum, subject and timetable pages are written in English, English is taught as both a first and a second language, and a student who does not speak English is given extra English lessons and placed in his class straight away. Portuguese is also taught as a first and a second language, alongside Portuguese Culture & Arts, French and German. The school runs the only open Cambridge exam centre in the Algarve and accepts external candidates of any age. Legally it operates as Descobrir Sonhos Lda and has a partner primary school, Barlavento International Primary School.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $8 364–9 410 a year
7 200–8 100 EUR
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Portuguese, French, German
Students
Около 80 учеников, 26 национальностей
Admissions The school says it has taught children from five continents over the years, and takes both those arriving from a Portuguese primary school and those transferring from the secondary stages of another system. English is not required at entry: a student who is not fluent is placed in his class immediately and given extra English lessons. Some students return to the Portuguese system for the 11th and 12th years after their IGCSEs. Besides its own students the school accepts external Cambridge exam candidates of all ages and backgrounds. Registration is through the form on the site, with a 300 euro enrolment fee and a refundable deposit equal to one term's fee.
Stages and year groups Grades Years 7-11, AS/A level. Years 7-9 form the foundation stage, Years 10-11 are a two-year IGCSE course with the option of sitting exams early, and AS and A level follow in small groups or one to one.
Address Sítio de Ezenha, 8670-116 Aljezur
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
Exam results The school publishes a table of Cambridge grades by year from 2015 to 2024. In 2024, 10 percent of entries were graded A*, 22 percent A, 29 percent B, 27 percent C and 12 percent below C. In 2020 only 4 percent of entries fell below C.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: The school occupies a converted farmhouse on seven acres of land five kilometres south of Aljezur, of which three hectares are ecologically protected. An annexe holds the ICT suite and the science lab, an organic vegetable garden grows at the bottom of the land where every student has his own bed, and a school coach runs from several points along the coast. The annual open-air play is performed beside the school building and in the forest park behind Barão de São João.
Clubs and activities: Duke of Edinburgh's Award · Play in the Parque · School band · Organic vegetable garden · Give Nature a Home · Bird ringing
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 school states a high teacher to student ratio of 1:3 and teaches in small groups so that a tutor keeps close contact with each student. Tutors are full time and stay on site through breaks, covering each other's lessons.
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 data80 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 data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data76 "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.
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