Badajoz, Spain · PrivateColegio El Tomillar is a private bilingual college of the Attendis group in Badajoz, on Calle Pantano de la Serena in the Las Vaguadas district. The school forms a pair with the Puertapalma college: the pair shares one correspondence domain (puertapalma-eltomillar.com) and one blog, but they are two different schools at different addresses, and it is El Tomillar that stands in the IB register. The Attendis group runs twenty colleges and thirteen Attendis Preschool centres in Andalusia and Extremadura, and by the group's own statement every one of its centres is authorised to teach International Baccalaureate programmes: thirty-one authorised programmes and thirteen applications in progress. Teaching in all the group's colleges is bilingual, Spanish and English, and the school prepares pupils for the official Cambridge ESOL English certificates, adding a third language on top. The stages follow the Spanish pattern: kindergarten from three to six, primary from six to twelve, ESO and the bachillerato. The colleges were founded by groups of parents and are run by the joint-stock company Centros Familiares de Enseñanza, registered in the Seville commercial register; the group's upbringing is Christian, but the schools are open to pupils of any belief. The main thing a parent will not find on the site: the group does not say which IB stages are authorised at this particular school, does not publish fees, does not list clubs and does not describe the facilities of the individual college - all those pages are shared across the group.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP, MYP · authorised programmeAttendis · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
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). 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.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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.
Attendis is a private school group in southern Spain founded in 1972. On its site the group lists 20 schools and 13 Attendis Preschool nurseries in Andalusia and Extremadura: two schools each in Algeciras, Almería, Badajoz, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga, Marbella, Seville and the El Puerto de Santa María and Jerez area. According to the group, all of its schools were started by parents inspired by the teachings of Saint Josemaría on education and the family. Since the early years the schools have been run by the public limited company Centros Familiares de Enseñanza, registered in the Seville Commercial Register. The group's site is attendis.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.