← Back to homeAmerican School of Valencia
Puçol, Spain · est. 1980 · Private
Illustration · Puçol
The American School of Valencia is a private American school in Puçol outside Valencia which grew out of a venture by parents and teachers: preparations began in 1978, and in October 1980 the school opened as Colegio Hispano-Norteamericano with twenty-seven pupils, the first English-speaking school in Valencia. It has borne the name American School of Valencia since 1995. It now has 960 pupils from 61 countries, and 1492 leavers since 1993. Its defining feature is three leaving certificates at once: a pupil may finish with the American High School Diploma, the Spanish Título de Bachiller (for the courses in Spanish language and literature and Spanish history and geography) and the International Baccalaureate Diploma, which the school has run since 2004 and first awarded in May 2006. The school publishes its results: an average IB score of 33.78, an average Spanish PCE entrance mark of 11.5 out of 14, an average 2024 SAT of 1117, and ninety per cent of leavers admitted to their first-choice university. There are four languages: English as the principal language of instruction, Spanish from pre-school alongside Valencian, and from Grade 6 French and German, which become electives from Grade 9. The campus covers 34000 square metres in the foothills of the Sierra Calderona: 57 classrooms, three parks, an artificial turf pitch, a swimming pool, a sports hall, a theatre, a library, two dining halls with the school's own kitchen and the Visions café. Fourteen bus routes serve the school, and families have an app to follow their bus. Health services are the school's own - a team of school nurses, defibrillators and trained staff. Of its extracurricular life the school leans on athletic teams, a STEM group and Model United Nations: it has run its own VALMUN conference since 2013, and there are exchanges with the Community School of Naples for Grades 6-7 and with Seabury Hall on Maui for Grades 9-10.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $8 391–11 141 a year
7 427–9 862 EUR
Programmes
IB · DP · American programme · National programme
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Spanish, French, German
About the fees Fees for 2026/2027: early childhood from Nursery to Kinder 7427 euros a year, elementary school (Grades 1-5) 7878 euros, middle school (Grades 6-8) 9291 euros, and high school 9516 euros for Grades 9-10 and 9862 euros for Grades 11-12. They are paid in ten equal monthly instalments from September to June, and in nine in Grade 12. On top of the fee: an application fee of 150 euros one time, an annual enrolment fee of 289 euros for shareholders and 1250 euros for everyone else, a one-off capital fee of 1500 euros for new students only, and a one-off ASV share of 2500 euros held while the student is enrolled.
Admissions The school does not set the grade by age: it says plainly that it looks at the grade level already completed and that age or date of birth does not determine placement, and for transfers from other systems it keeps a table of equivalences between American grades, IB stages and the Spanish and British systems. The application fee is 150 euros per child from Nursery to Grade 12, one time and non-refundable. Teaching is in English, and the school introduces Spanish from the pre-school stage. The school takes foreigners: it has 960 pupils from 61 countries, it is itself registered as a foreign school (centro extranjero), and it keeps an equivalence table for transfer from the American, British and Spanish systems and from IB programmes.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery - Grade 12. The stages run right through: early childhood (Nursery, Early Childhood 3, Early Childhood 4, Kinder), elementary from Grade 1 to Grade 5, middle school from Grade 6 to Grade 8 and high school from Grade 9 to Grade 12. Grades 9 and 10 rest on four core areas - English on the Common Core, mathematics on the Common Core and Spanish standards, science on the Next Generation Science Standards and social studies - plus compulsory Spanish, world languages, the arts, physical education and technology. In Grades 11 and 12 the school opens more than seventy course subjects and two pathways: the standard diploma and the IB Diploma. On entry the school places a pupil by the grade level completed rather than by age.
Address Avenida Sierra Calderona 29, Urbanización Los Monasterios, 46530 Puçol, Valencia
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationIB · DP · 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
MSAMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →American programme
The American school programme, with the High School Diploma at the end. It usually comes together with AP courses, which the College Board stands behind, and with an American accreditation - MSA, NEASC or Cognia.
What this means for this school. The diploma is written out by the school itself: the American programme has no common leaving exam, and the content of the senior years is set by the school. Outside checking therefore rests on two things here - the accreditation of the school, and the AP exams if the school runs them.
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
Average IB score
33.78 (world average 30.88)
Exam results The school publishes an average IB Diploma score of 33.78, an average score of 11.5 out of 14 in the Spanish PCE entrance exams and an average SAT of 1117 in 2024. It does not say which year the IB and PCE averages refer to.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Playground
Campus: A campus of 34000 square metres in the foothills of the Sierra Calderona, in the Los Monasterios district of Puçol. It holds 57 classrooms, three parks, an artificial turf playing field and a swimming pool, a sports hall, a theatre, a library and the Visions café. There are two dining halls, both served by the school's own kitchen: the main one for 450 pupils and a separate one for the high school. The facilities were built up year by year: the pool in 2000, the nursery park, dining hall, theatre and sports hall in 2004, the athletic field and car park in 2009-2010, and a new athletic centre in 2016. Fourteen bus routes serve the school, and families have an app to follow their own.
Clubs and activities (8): Sports teams · STEM group · Basketball · Multi-sports · Model United Nations · School's own VALMUN conference · Exchange with Community School of Naples · Exchange with Seabury Hall on Maui
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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 room
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Health services are the school's own: a team of school nurses on campus who deal with incidents and keep an eye on pupils with chronic conditions, together with teaching on hygiene and wellbeing and cardiac protection - defibrillators and trained staff. At the senior stage the school runs counselling on personal, social and emotional matters alongside university orientation. It publishes no separate child protection policy.
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%)84 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 data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data90 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "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