← Back to homeBenjamin Franklin International School
Barcelona, Spain · est. 1986 · Private
Illustration · Barcelona
Benjamin Franklin International School is a non-profit international school in the Sarrià district of Barcelona, a short way from the Collserola natural park. Ten Barcelona families started it: the venture began in 1985, and the school opened its doors in September 1986 with twenty-three teachers and a hundred and fifty pupils. It now has about seven hundred pupils from three to nineteen years of age from more than sixty countries and around a hundred teachers, and the school itself writes that it reached its capacity back in 2019. It is built as an American school with an IB superstructure: the US programme runs from preschool to grade 5, the IB Middle Years Programme from grade 6 to grade 10, and grades 11 and 12 are the Diploma Programme, which more than ninety-five per cent of pupils take. A leaver receives the school's accredited American high school diploma - twenty-four academic credits and a completed CAS - and with it the IB diploma, which also opens Spanish universities. Teaching is in English; Spanish runs as an additional language in four phases, Catalan as a first language for Spanish pupils, who must also cover three subjects of the Spanish ESO programme and Spanish geography and history in Spanish, and French is available as a flex course. The school requires no uniform. The day runs from 8:35 to 16:00, until 15:00 on Wednesdays, and some Diploma Programme classes start at eight. Its leavers go far and wide: the list of universities that accepted them includes Oxford and Cambridge, four Ivy League schools, the LSE and Imperial, Delft and Leiden, Bocconi and Sciences Po, ESADE and IE. The main thing a parent needs to know: the school has no gymnasium of its own yet - one is promised in the new Center for Creativity and Innovation - and no pool at all, with swimming run as an off-site after-school activity.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $14 630–24 538 a year
12 950–21 720 EUR
Programmes
IB · MYP, DP · American programme
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Spanish, French
Registration fee
≈ $282
250 EUR
About the fees The fee for 2026-2027, from the school's own page: preschool Nursery and Pre-K 12950 euros, lower school from kindergarten to grade 5: 17000, middle school grades 6-8: 18240 and high school grades 9-12: 21720 euros. For families enrolled by an employer the rates are separate and higher, from 16400 to 25430 euros. Lunch costs 1820 euros a year or 192 euros a month, a single ticket 12.30 euros. The bus within Barcelona is 2240 euros return and 1380 euros one way, from Sant Cugat 2710 and 1640 euros; single tickets are 9 euros in the city and 15.90 euros from Sant Cugat. The discounts: one and a half per cent for paying a year up front, ten per cent for a third child and twenty per cent for a fourth and subsequent children.
Admissions Admission runs all year round, on a rolling basis, for children from three to seventeen, and in four steps. The first is an application through the OpenApply platform with a non-refundable fee of 250 euros and documents as PDFs with English translations; the school does not accept screenshots. The second is assessment, and it differs by stage: in the preschool it is an observation of the child over thirty to forty minutes or a video of their skills, in the lower school an observation or work samples plus MAP testing for grades 4 and 5, and from grade 6 to grade 11 MAP tests in mathematics and English and a writing sample; for those learning English a language assessment is added. The third is a decision within two weeks, and it comes in three kinds: acceptance, the waiting list if the grade is full, and refusal - on academic grounds, on behaviour, on the level of English, or because the school cannot meet the child's support needs. The fourth is enrolment with a contract, a SEPA form, an immunisation record and health forms. Two rules are worth knowing in advance: Nursery takes a child who turns three by 31 December, is toilet trained and can feed and dress themselves, and grade 11 for the Diploma Programme only if the pupil is within a year of the usual age for the grade and will not be nineteen at graduation. Up to grade 2 a child may arrive with no English at all; after grade 2 the level is assessed. The school takes foreigners: its pupils come from more than sixty countries, it asks for documents translated into English and accepts children without English up to grade 2.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery from age 3 - grade 12, up to age 19. The stages run right through and change programme twice. Preschool Nursery and Pre-K covers ages three to five, working in the spirit of Reggio Emilia with three or four large units a year, free and guided play and a forest school for kindergarten and grade 1. The lower school is kindergarten and grades 1 to 5, to US standards: Common Core for literacy and mathematics, the NGSS for science, the C3 framework for social studies, iPads in every classroom and one iPad per pupil from grade 3. From grade 6 to grade 10 every course follows the IB Middle Years Programme with its eight subject groups and ends in a personal project; grades 11 and 12 are the Diploma Programme. Spanish pupils cover three subjects of the ESO programme and Spanish geography and history alongside. The day runs from 8:35 to 16:00, until 15:00 on Wednesdays, with some Diploma Programme classes from 8:00.
Address Martorell i Peña 9
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationIB · MYP, DP · authorised programmeCIS · membershipschool 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: MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). 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. 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 →CISCouncil of International Schools
It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
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.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Average IB score
34 (world average 30.88)
Exam results The IB diploma in 2026: the school's average was 34 against a world average of 30.88, 90 per cent passed, 74.2 per cent of leavers scored above the world average, half scored 35 or more and 18.2 per cent scored 40 or more. More than ninety-five per cent of pupils take the Diploma Programme.
Where leavers go: Oxford · Cambridge · Imperial College London · LSE · UCL · King's College London · Durham · Edinburgh · Bristol · Brown · Columbia · Pennsylvania and others, 32 universities in the school's list in all
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
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Makerspace
Campus: The campus sits in the residential district of Sarrià next to the Collserola natural park, with easy public transport. The elementary school building of 2016 has a sports court and three patios, a rooftop patio, its own kitchen and cafeteria on the lower level and an elementary library with its own catalogue. The secondary building of 2021 has a large library media centre, two fully equipped science laboratories, a makerspace with a design lab, a rooftop recreation area and changing rooms. The school has no gymnasium of its own yet: its teams train on its outdoor courts and at the partner facilities Egora Olympics and Meiland Teixonera, and an Olympic-sized gymnasium is promised in the new Center for Creativity and Innovation. There is no pool: swimming runs as an after-school activity. Three school buses of its own run - via Port Olímpic and Gràcia, via Plaça Universitat and Les Corts, and from Sant Cugat.
Clubs and activities (27): Combined events · Music and movement · Three-dimensional art · Cookery · Swimming · Programming and robotics · Stagecraft · Musical theatre · Chess · Little makers · Piano · Guitar · Drums · Violin · Fencing · Cheerleading · Football and futsal · Basketball · Volleyball · Robotics · Tabletop role-playing games · Fitness · Startup academy · Artificial intelligence and machine learning · Middle and high school theatre production · First Robotics Competition · First Lego League
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 states around a hundred teachers for about seven hundred pupils. Bilingual and multilingual specialists work separately: they co-plan lessons with the teachers, give language instruction to pupils acquiring English, prepare support materials for the mainstream classroom and set goals from data. A learning support team works with children who have mild to moderate learning differences, both inside the classroom and in small groups. The school does not state qualifications, the pupil-teacher ratio or class sizes.
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 policy
✓Staff training
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school has a child protection policy, and it writes that every member of staff is fully trained in its protocols and that the pupils themselves are taught how to protect themselves from harm. Social emotional counselors work with children on self-awareness, protection from harm and self-advocacy. There is a health centre - administration of medication, emergency protocols, immunisation checks, allergy management and nutrition support. Against bullying the school runs Pink Shirt Day. Among its published documents are a belonging, inclusion and safety policy, a child safeguarding and protection policy, a language policy, a support inclusion policy, an elementary school behaviour policy, a secondary student code of conduct, an assessment policy, an academic integrity policy, a food allergy management plan, rules on communicable diseases, a vaccination policy and a policy on smoking, drugs and alcohol. The school names no psychologist.
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%)90 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 data75 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data80 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