← Back to homeColegio Arenas
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain · est. 1940 · Private
Illustration · Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Colegio Arenas is the flagship school of the Canary Islands group Arenas International School, founded in 1940 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by Lucía Pérez and Antonio Ojeda and still a family school: their daughter carried it on, and today the third generation runs it. In the 1970s the school was one of the first in Spain and the first in the Canary Islands to move to a bilingual Spanish-English model, in 1976 it moved to the Los Tarahales district, and in 2004 it moved secondary school and the bachillerato to a separate campus, Colegio Arenas Atlántico in Arucas. The school has run IB programmes since 2005 and since 2017 at every stage; it calls itself the only school in the Canary Islands with all three IB programmes in sequence: the primary one in kindergarten and primary school, the middle years one in ESO and the diploma in the bachillerato. Children are taken from four months old. In kindergarten half of the day is in English, and in primary school, the school says, children do not learn English but learn subjects in English; French or German start at five, Chinese in the second grade. The group has its own music conservatory, Arenas Albéniz, the Aqua & Sports Center sports centre and the Sulis Manor house in Bath, England, where a summer course and an autumn term in British schools take place. The school holds the ISO 9001 quality and ISO 14001 environmental certificates.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · PYP, MYP, DP
Admits from
4 months · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
Spanish, English
Languages taught
German, French, Chinese
Summer camp
Yes, open to all
Admissions The school takes children from four months old up to eighteen. Admission, it says, adapts to the needs of the prospective pupil: the school gets to know the child's family and academic situation. The procedure is this: the family fills in the form on the admissions page, and the admissions team contacts it. The school publishes no deadlines, no list of documents, no entrance tests and no language requirements, and it does not write separately about children from other countries.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery from 4 months - bachillerato (16-18 years). There are five stages: Nursery from four months to three years, kindergarten from three to six, primary school from six to twelve, ESO from twelve to sixteen and the bachillerato from sixteen to eighteen. The IB Primary Years Programme runs in kindergarten and primary school, the IB Middle Years Programme in ESO, the Diploma Programme in the bachillerato. Nursery, kindergarten and primary school study on the Los Tarahales campus in Las Palmas, ESO and the bachillerato on the Colegio Arenas Atlántico campus in Arucas. The school gives no class sizes.
Address Llano de Los Tarahales, 76, 35013 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP, MYP, DP · authorised programmeArenas International Schools · 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
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: PYP (ages 3-12), MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). PYP is the primary stage, ages 3 to 12. It is not a set of subjects but a frame for the whole school: learning is built around lines of inquiry, and there are no exams at the end. 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 →Arenas International Schoolsschool network
Arenas International Schools (AIS Group) is a private family-run group of schools in the Canary Islands; on the site of its Gran Canaria school the group says it began to develop in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1940, when the teachers Lucía Pérez and Antonio Ojeda founded Colegio Arenas, and that the work was continued by their daughter and then the third generation of the family. We did not find a separate site for the group: the list of AIS Group centres is published on the Gran Canaria school's site. In Spain these are Colegio Arenas (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, nursery, infant and primary) and Colegio Arenas Atlántico (Arucas, secondary and Bachillerato) in Gran Canaria, and Colegio Arenas Internacional in Costa Teguise, Lanzarote; the group also includes the Arenas Albéniz music conservatoire, the Aqua & Sports centres and the Sulis Manor centre in Bath, England. The two group sites give different dates for the Lanzarote school: the Gran Canaria site says it was founded in 1995, while the school's own site says it was founded by a group of parents in 1986 and has been a member of AISGROUP since 1996; we quote both. The sites are aisgrancanaria.com and aislanzarote.com.
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
Exam results For the IB Diploma Programme of 2025 the school reports that one hundred per cent of its pupils passed it, and that in Spanish, English, philosophy, biology and mathematics (analysis and approaches) the result was above the world average; it does not give an average score. The school shows its PAU 2025 results only as pictures. Cambridge examinations of 2024-2025: A2 Key, B1 Preliminary and C1 Advanced were passed by 100 per cent, B2 First by 97 per cent, C2 Proficiency by 91 per cent; French by 100 per cent.
Where leavers go: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid · Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · University of Stirling
The school publishes no list of universities and no share of those admitted. On the alumni page it names three stories: an economist from Carlos III University in Madrid, a computer engineer from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and a graduate of the University of Stirling in Scotland; otherwise it says that over its years engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians, architects and journalists have come out of the school.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Playground
Campus: The Los Tarahales campus in Las Palmas, for Nursery, kindergarten and primary school: a pool, a school gym and a competition hall, science laboratories, separate kindergarten and primary libraries, its own kitchen and canteen, sports courts over 6300 square metres, an assembly hall, an art studio and a playground; next to it is the Aqua & Sports Center Gran Canaria of 5000 square metres, opened in 2018. The Colegio Arenas Atlántico campus in Arucas, for ESO and the bachillerato, stands on a plot of more than 65000 square metres: physics and geology and biology and chemistry laboratories, a library, its own kitchen and canteen, 5800 square metres of sports courts with artificial grass, tennis and padel courts, an assembly hall and an art studio. The school bus carries pupils from all districts of Las Palmas and between the two campuses.
Clubs and activities (19): Swimming · Water fitness for toddlers (Matronatación) · Ludoteca · Psicoritmo · Contemporary dance · Multi-sports · Rhythmic gymnastics · Artistic gymnastics · Mini-football · Basketball · Volleyball · Padel · Judo · Chinese for native speakers · BizKids · German · French · Study support in English and Spanish · Saturday School
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp and takes children from outside as well
Summer programme away from campus:
In summer the school runs two lines. In Bath, England, there is a three-week course from 29 June to 20 July 2026 for teenagers aged 12-17 from any school: the first week at the PGL Liddington adventure centre, the second and third with summer school classes and excursions, staying at the Sulis Manor house; the price is 3350 euros without air fares. Besides that, the school names its own summer camp, Estival Arenas, but gives no dates or prices for it on the main site.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
✓Teacher qualifications
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
What the listings show: native English speakers and qualified bilingual teachers
The school does not publish the number of its teachers. About languages it says that English is taught by native speakers or qualified bilingual teachers; at the Saturday School sessions, the school says, native and bilingual teachers also work. The school's leadership, as the directors' letter says, has worked there for more than thirty years.
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 policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The school has a guidance department with an educational psychologist, a speech therapist and a psychologist, whom both pupils and families can book. The kitchen and canteen work to ISO 9001 and food safety standards, and the menu is drawn up by a dietitian. The school names no security staff, no video surveillance, no medical room, no written child protection policy and no anti-bullying programme.
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%)95 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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data95 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median83 "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 7 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