← Back to homeBarcelona High School
Barcelona, Spain · Private
Illustration · Barcelona
Barcelona High School is an American school in Barcelona working across two campuses: the younger one, for the preschool and primary stages, is in upper Gràcia, and the older one, with the middle and high school, is in the 22@ technology district of Poblenou. The school began with five pupils in a windowless basement: it was set up by Akida Mashaka, an American and a Harvard Law graduate dissatisfied with the ordinary way schools are run, together with co-founder Amanda Slefo, a teacher from Chicago. It now speaks of more than five hundred pupils and calls itself the fastest-growing school in Europe. It teaches the American curriculum and awards an American high school diploma accredited by WASC, with Advanced Placement courses on top. As a second route the school runs the Spanish ESO - so a leaver can come out with the Spanish compulsory secondary qualification as well. Languages: lessons are in English, with Spanish and Catalan taught separately, and for those whose English is not enough there is an ELL support programme - free in the primary school, 300 euros a month in the middle and high school. The day runs from 9:00 to 15:00, Monday to Friday. Separately the school runs a boarding programme: accommodation in a residence two minutes' walk from campus with a resident monitor inside, and it is this programme that gives a non-EU minor the legal basis for a student visa - ordinary Barcelona residences do not take children. The boarding fee is quoted per period and includes tuition. Among its services the school has its own social and emotional wellbeing team, a learning support service and a university placement service, while child protection is led by a named director of safeguarding with two stage deputies.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $15 703–25 871 a year
13 900–22 900 EUR
Programmes
AP · American programme · National programme
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees The annual fee is announced by stage and taken in ten instalments or in one, with a discount of about ten per cent for paying in a single payment: preschool 13900 euros a year (12510 in one payment), primary years one to five 16900 (15210), middle school and ESO years six to eight 18900 (17010), high school years nine to ten 21900 (19710), pre-university years eleven to twelve 22900 (20610). The online K-12 option costs 14900 euros a year (13410 in one payment) and is not included in this card's range. On top of the fee: the application is free, the annual matriculation fee is 1000 euros and the one-off entrance fee 2500 euros, both non-refundable. ELL English support is free in the primary school and costs 300 euros a month in the middle and high school; meals are included in the fee for preschool and primary and cost 215 euros a month in the middle and high school. Boarding is announced separately and includes tuition: 45000 euros for ten months, 25000 for five, 16500 for three, with a deposit of 20 per cent of the boarding fee, and for non-EU citizens a further 2500 euros for the student visa programme. The school states its main condition plainly: the fee rate is fixed by contract from the day of enrolment until graduation and does not rise with inflation or with moving up a grade.
Admissions Admission is open all year round and runs in six steps: a meeting with the admissions team at the school or online; documents - official transcripts from the previous school with translations if required, and a passport or identity document; payment of the one-time entrance fee; payment of the annual matriculation fee; where applicable, the student visa process using the school's matriculation letter; and the first month of tuition, or the whole annual sum at once with a discount. The school takes foreign students and helps them with the visa: a student visa is needed only by non-EU students without Spanish residency who come to study for more than 90 days; EU citizens and those who already have residency through their parents do not need one. The visa can only be applied for in the home country, and the school advises starting 6 months before arrival. The school's admissions page names no entrance test and no Spanish or English language requirement.
Stages and year groups Grades preschool from age 3 - grade 12. The stages follow the American grid from 3 to 18, and the school itself maps it onto the Spanish and British systems and onto the IB programmes: preschool Pre-K3 to K, primary years one to five, middle school years six to eight (the Spanish ESO), high school years nine to ten, pre-university years eleven to twelve. The school day runs from 9:00 to 15:00, Monday to Friday. The campuses are split by stage: preschool and primary in upper Gràcia, middle and high school in Poblenou; for 2026-2027 the school has expanded both so as not to keep a waiting list.
Address Carrer de Joan d'Àustria, 109, 08018
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
ACS WASC · accreditationCollege Board · 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
ACS WASCAccrediting Commission for Schools of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
An American regional accreditation of the institution, working since 1962 and covering some 5,500 schools in California, the Pacific and Asia. It judges the whole school: a self-study, then a team visit. It gives the same status to supplementary and virtual programmes, so the category of an entry is worth checking separately.
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 →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.
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
The school does not describe its premises on its website.
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 roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
✓Child protection policy
✓Staff training
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Child protection at the school is set up by name: director of safeguarding Sheila Sanjaime and two deputies - one for the middle and high school, one for the primary and preschool. The school builds its policy on international standards, the Spanish Ley Orgánica 8/2021 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and says all staff sign a code of conduct and complete child protection training. Separately it has a social and emotional wellbeing team and a learning support service. It names no CCTV, security staff, access control or medical room.
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%)75 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 data70 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data55 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