← Back to homeChester College International School
Santiago de Compostela, Spain · est. 1984 · Private
Illustration · Santiago de Compostela
Chester College International School is a private bilingual school outside Santiago de Compostela. It was founded by Juan Pías and Dolores Peleteiro in 1984: that summer the first language immersion courses took place, and it began operating as a school in 1987, after recognition as an approved foreign centre by the Ministry of Education and the Galician government; the school calls itself the first international educational centre in Galicia. It stands on a wooded hilltop 4 kilometres from the city centre, in a building by the architect César Portela. Its curriculum is a double one, and that is its defining feature: it runs the American and the Spanish programmes together, and on leaving Grade 12 a pupil receives both the American High School Diploma and the Spanish Título de Bachiller. The languages are held roughly equal - 50 per cent of the time in English with native-speaking teachers and 50 per cent in Spanish - and on top of that all primary pupils have Galician and German. The school takes children without Spanish and brings them in through gradual immersion, and its Spanish as a foreign language course prepares for the Instituto Cervantes certificates. Groups are small: no more than 12 pupils per class. The day runs from 9:20 to 16:40, with extracurricular activities to 17:40, and lunch and a morning snack are cooked in the school's own kitchen. There is an international boarding programme for Grades 9-12: separate houses for boys and girls near the school, full or weekly, or a host family. Of its extracurricular life the school leans on music and drama - at least 2 productions a year involving every pupil, violin and piano with ABRSM examinations - and on sport almost every day. The senior stage prepares pupils both for the Spanish EBAU and PCE entrance examinations and for the international route through the SAT and selected AP subjects. In summer the school runs its own language camps for the 41st year.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $6 722–8 868 a year
5 950–7 850 EUR
Programmes
American programme · National programme
Languages of instruction
English, Spanish
Languages taught
Galician, German
Summer camp
Yes, open to all
About the fees Fees for 2025/2026 are published monthly and split into ten payments from September to June: Early Learning (Pre-K 1 - K) 595 euros a month, primary school (Grades 1-6) 660 euros, middle school (Grades 7-10) 705 euros, high school (Grades 11-12) 785 euros. Lunch with a morning snack is charged separately - 179 euros a month at the younger stages and 200 euros at middle and high school. The annual registration fee is 450 euros and the Spanish language programme is 300 euros a month. The family discounts are large: with three children, 60 per cent off the tuition and free lunch for the youngest; with four or more, 100 per cent off tuition and lunch for the youngest. Textbooks and personal materials are not included and the uniform is compulsory. A pupil leaving mid-year is charged for two further months.
Admissions The school takes pupils from all over the world and says plainly that applicants without Spanish are given gradual immersion: core subjects can be taken in English at first, and Spanish as a foreign language runs as a separate intensive course with preparation for the official Instituto Cervantes certificates. The international boarding programme takes middle and high school pupils, by the Spanish page from ESO 3 to year 2 of Bachillerato, that is Grades 9-12, for 1 school year or more; no Spanish is required of them, but English must be at least B2. Boarding is full, Monday to Sunday, or weekly, to Friday or Saturday morning, or with a host family. The school does not set out the order of documents, deadlines or tests on its site.
Stages and year groups Grades Pre-K 1 - Grade 12. The stages run right through: Early Learning (Pre-K 1, Pre-K, K), primary school from 6 to 12 (G1-G6), then middle and high school up to Grade 12. The site marks the middle stage in two ways: the English middle school page names Grades 7 and 8, corresponding to ESO 1-2, while the menu and the fees page say Grades 7-10; the high school is accordingly Grades 9-12 or 11-12. In the final years a pupil chooses 1 of 3 pathways - Science and Technology, Health Sciences, or Social Sciences and Humanities - and receives both the American diploma and the Spanish Título de Bachiller. The day runs from 9:20 to 16:40, with extracurricular activities to 17:40. There are no more than 12 pupils in a class. Families receive grades and reports 6 times a year, plus monthly newsletters and a meeting with the form tutor once a term.
Address Travesía de Montouto 2, 15894 Teo, Santiago de Compostela (A Coruña)
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · 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
CogniaCognia, formerly AdvancED
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
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 →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 from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
✓Boarding
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio
Campus: A campus on a wooded hilltop with views of Pico Sacro and the head of the Ulla valley, 4 kilometres from the centre of Santiago de Compostela. The school has 8 classrooms, a central hall, a science laboratory, an art room, a music room, a library, 2 football pitches, a tennis and basketball court and an outdoor pool. The kitchen is its own, with its own chef: every meal - 2 courses and a dessert - is cooked on site each day from local produce. The boarding houses stand within walking distance of the school, separately for boys and girls; all meals are taken in the main building.
Clubs and activities (7): Drama productions · Violin · Piano · Football · Tennis · Basketball · Public speaking skills
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp and takes children from outside as well
Summer programme away from campus: residential option in the English and Spanish Summer Camps
The school runs 3 summer camps of its own in July, the 41st season in 2026: the Chester International English Summer Camp and the Spanish International Summer Camp for children and teenagers from 8 to 17-18, residential or day, and the Chester English MINI Camp for children from 3 to 7-8, a day camp. They take both the school's own pupils and children from outside; the programme has sport, music, drama and creative activities. The school gives no prices on the camps page.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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%)72 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 data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 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