← Back to homeColegio Heidelberg
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain · est. 1967 · Private
Illustration · Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Colegio Heidelberg opened in August 1967 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria - at a time when the tourist boom and the closure of the Suez Canal brought foreign companies to the city and with them a demand for bilingual schools; in its first two years, by its own account, the school looked like a small gathering of nations. The new campus at Barranco Seco was begun in 1972. The school became a member of the International Baccalaureate Organisation on 29 April 1986 and runs two of the four programmes - the Middle Years Programme and the Diploma - while for the Primary Years Programme, for kindergarten and the primary classes, it is still an applicant; it was the first school in the Canary Islands to run the Diploma. Its language model is trilingual and unusual: in kindergarten, from two to five, most lessons are in German with native or bilingual teachers, English is added at five, and from year one of primary about half the subjects are taught in German and English; the school promises a C1 level by the end of schooling. The site covers 65200 square metres with three buildings by stage, 46 ordinary classrooms plus a playroom, three art rooms, a technology workshop, a music room, three laboratories totalling 280 square metres, two computer rooms, a library with five thousand volumes, a stage and a conference hall, while the 30000-square-metre sports area includes five basketball courts, two five-a-side pitches, a regulation football pitch with artificial turf of 10000 square metres, a pelota court and a three-storey covered sports pavilion of 4080 square metres with a parquet floor. A 35-square-metre medical room is staffed all day by a doctor specialising in family medicine, and the school has three defibrillators.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · MYP, DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
Spanish, German, English
Admissions Registration is open all year, but the school advises applying early because of high demand: through the form on the site, in person at the secretariat or by phone, after which the admissions team contacts the family and completes registration in person. Siblings of pupils and children of former pupils have priority. German is the school's first foreign language but is not required for entry: new families undertake to send the child to German classes from level zero, and for those entering the bachillerato German is not needed at all. The school is run as a non-profit company in which parents are shareholders, and on entry one share is bought for each child. The school describes no separate procedure for children from abroad.
Stages and year groups Grades kindergarten from age 2 - the bachillerato. The stages are Educacion Infantil from two to five, Educacion Primaria, Secundaria and the bachillerato; the IB programmes run on the same frame - the Middle Years Programme and the Diploma Programme in the final two years. The campus's three buildings correspond to three stages: kindergarten, primary, and secondary with upper secondary.
Address Barranco Seco, 15, 35015 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · MYP, DP · 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
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 →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 poolnot stated on the website
✓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
Campus: A site of 65200 square metres, three buildings by stage, a football pitch and a sports pavilion. 46 ordinary classrooms of 56-60 square metres and, beyond them, a playroom, three art and design rooms, a technology workshop, a music room, three laboratories of 280 square metres in total for physics, chemistry, biology and geology, two computer rooms with more than twenty terminals each, a library of more than 60 square metres with a catalogue of five thousand volumes, a multifunctional stage and a conference hall. A 30000-square-metre sports area: five basketball courts, two multi-purpose courts, a regulation football pitch with artificial turf of 10000 square metres, a pelota court and a covered three-storey sports pavilion of 4080 square metres with parquet on the main floor. A canteen with its own kitchen preparing its own food, with menus for allergies and intolerances. School transport runs on almost thirty routes, subcontracted to LAS PALMAS BUS, S.A.
Clubs and activities (24): Football · Basketball · Rhythmic gymnastics · Volleyball · Athletics · Judo · Roller skating · Cross Training · Classical dance · Contemporary dance · Street Dance · Yoga · Chess · English · German · Chinese · Piano · Guitar · Introduction to programming · Programming and robotics · Robotix with Lego · Theatre · Cookery workshop · Mental arithmetic
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 room
·Counsellornot stated on the website
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
A 35-square-metre medical room is open throughout the school day, staffed by a doctor specialising in family and community medicine. The school has three defibrillators placed around the campus. The doctor handles daily incidents, advises pupils and families and monitors pupils with chronic conditions - diabetes, asthma, epilepsy. A guidance department works separately: it supports the pupil, the family and the teacher at every stage, identifies and follows up learning and emotional needs, and handles academic and careers guidance.
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%)88 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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data90 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