← Back to homeAtlas American School of Málaga
Estepona, Spain · Private
Illustration · Estepona
Atlas American School of Málaga is a school on the American curriculum in the Selwo Hills development in Estepona on the Costa del Sol, the third school of the Madrid group Mathema Educación, which also owns Aquinas American School in Pozuelo de Alarcón, founded in 2012, the International School of Navarra and a student residence. The school is an IB World School, fully accredited by MSA, and its courses are approved by the NCAA for American college sport. The cycle is complete: preschool from the age of three, lower school from grade 1 to grade 6, middle school grades 7-8 and high school from grade 9 to grade 12. There are two roads out - the American diploma, which can be converted into the Spanish bachillerato, or the IB diploma, authorised from September 2024; a diploma year costs 1500 euros more than an ordinary grade 12. The senior years offer Advanced Placement courses, an annual SAT preparation course - the school is itself an SAT centre - and an intensive French programme. Teaching is in English and the staff is multinational: a team of about seventy people from the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Spain and other countries, and for children whose English is not their first language there is an English as an Additional Language programme. Music, theatre, choir and painting are built into the school day, and physical education in the lower and middle school takes 4 hours a week. The main thing a parent needs to know: the school publishes its full price list, including the bus, lunch and language support, but it gives no pupil numbers and no examination results - the counters on its home page stand at zero.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $9 659–18 471 a year
8 550–16 350 EUR
Programmes
IB · DP · AP · American programme
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Spanish, French
About the fees The fee for 2026-2027, from the school's own price list: preschool K1-K3 8550 euros, lower school grades 1-6: 11300, middle school grades 7-8: 12700, high school grades 9-11: 14850, grade 12 of the American diploma 14850, and the IB Diploma Programme 16350 euros for each of its two years. It is paid in three instalments, and paying the whole sum up front earns a four per cent discount. Lunch costs 1450 euros a year, the bus 1650 euros one way and 2000 euros return. The fee does not cover uniform, textbooks and licences for grades 11-12 and the Diploma Programme, Spanish and English language support - up to three hundred euros a month - or IB subject certificates for those taking the American diploma, at six hundred euros per subject.
Admissions The school takes foreign pupils: on its admission criteria page it says plainly that pupils who studied grades 7-11 abroad bring original documents apostilled or certified in the country where they studied. Admission runs in five steps: a letter or call to the school and a meeting, a campus tour, an application through the OpenApply platform, an interview with entrance tests (in person or online), and confirmation of admission by a letter from the admissions committee, followed by a service agreement and a deposit. The documents required are grades for the two previous years and the current one and references from the previous school. For children whose English is not their first language, the Duolingo English Test with a score of at least 120 is compulsory for entry to the senior grades. A family has 15 calendar days to confirm enrolment in writing. Priority goes to siblings of current pupils and to children of staff, while cases with learning difficulties are considered one by one. There are four possible answers - admission, conditional admission, the waiting list and refusal.
Stages and year groups Grades K1 from age 3 - grade 12. The cycle runs right through in four stages: preschool K1-K3 from three to six years of age, lower school from grade 1 to grade 6, middle school grades 7-8 and high school from grade 9 to grade 12. In the preschool the work is built on learning centres that change every quarter of an hour, and on play; K3 adds classroom routines and social skills. In grades 9 and 10 a pupil takes all the core subjects plus two electives, in grades 11 and 12 a set matching the road they have chosen: the American diploma or the IB diploma. The Diploma Programme runs two years and ends with school.
Address Calle Monda 2, Selwo Hills
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationIB · DP · authorised programmeCollege Board · authorised programmeMathema Educación · school is part of the networkschool 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 →College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Authorisation here runs a year at a time: the register lists the school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
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.
Mathema Educaciónschool network
Mathema Educación is a school group whose history begins in 2012 with Aquinas American School in Pozuelo de Alarcón: its founders, supported by families, bought the building of a Spanish school and turned it into an American one. The Mathema Educación brand was created in October 2022 as the name of the group, which runs three schools and a student residence. Besides Aquinas, these are the British International School of Navarra in Gorraiz (Navarre), managed by the Aquinas team since the 2020/21 school year, and Atlas - American School of Malaga in Estepona, opened in 2022. The Aquinas residence for high school students is in Montepríncipe. The group's site is mathemaeducacion.es.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.
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
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: One campus at Calle Monda 2 in the Selwo Hills development in Estepona. Of its sports facilities the school names a seven-a-side football pitch, two basketball courts, a fitness room and a gym for the lower school. It has a kitchen of its own, and because of a rule on allergen-free classrooms the only food in school is the school's: bringing your own, including for celebrations, is not allowed. A school bus runs, one way or return, on a separate tariff. The school does not list its other rooms in text.
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 its staff by name, about seventy people: the head of school and the stage principals, the IB coordinators, the heads of science and mathematics, language arts and humanities, modern languages and physical education, homeroom teachers and assistants in the preschool and lower school, subject teachers in the middle and high school, English as an Additional Language teachers, the student support department, university counsellors and the school nurse. The team is multinational - from the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Spain and other countries. The school names no qualifications, no pupil-teacher ratio and no class sizes: the counters on its home page stand at zero.
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
·Counsellornot stated on the website
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The school has a nurse and a student support department: learning support specialists, English as an Additional Language teachers and counsellors. The department runs individual counselling, small-group sessions and workshops - on kindness in class, study skills, time management, conflict resolution and personal safety. The school publishes no child protection policy, no security arrangements and no anti-bullying rules; of its rules it names only allergen-free classrooms.
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%)87 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%)95 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 "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