← Back to homeEl Centro Inglés
El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain · est. 1969 · Private
Illustration · El Puerto de Santa Maria
El Centro Inglés, in English The English Centre, is a private multilingual international school in El Puerto de Santa María on the Bay of Cádiz. It was opened on 27 October 1969 by its founder Mrs L. M. Randell; in 1973-1974 the school received permission to work as a bilingual school, in 1985 it bought an adjoining plot of more than 10000 square metres, and in 2008 the founder's son David Randell took charge of it. In 2021 the school joined CIS, and in 2025 it received CIS accreditation and the Duke of Edinburgh International Award programme. Today it calls itself an International Family School, a large school family. It takes children from 2 to 18 and teaches them under the official Spanish curriculum together with its own International Curriculum endorsed by Cambridge: the early years stage follows the British curriculum with full immersion in English, then come Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form. The page about the school names Cambridge Primary Checkpoint, Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint, Cambridge IGCSE and the IB Diploma. The share of English in teaching hours falls with age: 89.3 per cent in the early years stage, 73.33 in junior school, 28.6 in senior school, so older pupils study mainly in Spanish. French starts at 2, German and Chinese culture at 4, and in secondary school the pupil chooses German or French. The campus of 23000 square metres has a heated swimming pool, laboratories and courts; eight bus routes run from Rota and Sanlúcar to Cádiz and Chiclana. In 2025 the school's pupils scored 528 points in PISA against 462 for Spain and 469 for the OECD. The school states its fees only on request.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE
Admits from
2 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English, Spanish
Languages taught
French, German
Admissions The school also accepts children from abroad: its admissions policy says that pupils from foreign education systems are placed in a year group by date of birth, as current regulations require. Spanish or English is desirable from the start: the family, the school says, must understand that without one of these languages it is hard for the child to follow lessons, and undertakes to bring it up quickly; gaps in French from Year 2 are made up by the family through outside lessons. Admission goes in five steps: a request for information, a visit to the school, an interview with the deputy head together with the child and a review of their grades, formalising enrolment with documents, and a preparatory test in May or June. The test in English, Spanish language, mathematics and a psychotechnical test is set from Year 2 in the admissions policy and from Year 3 in the answers to frequently asked questions; from Year 11 physics and chemistry are added. The main intake runs from January to March, but after that the school still admits while places remain. When places are short, priority goes to brothers and sisters of pupils, children of former pupils and those who applied earlier. The school admits children with special educational needs if it can offer them a suitable programme, at an additional cost.
Stages and year groups Grades Early Years from 2 years - Sixth Form / 2nd year of Bachillerato (18 years). Four stages: Early Years from 2 to 5 under the British curriculum with full immersion in English and classroom assistants, Junior School (primary), Senior School (secondary) and Sixth Form (baccalaureate) up to 18. The basis is the official Spanish curriculum, to which the school adds its own International Curriculum endorsed by Cambridge; the page about the school names Cambridge Primary Checkpoint, Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint, Cambridge IGCSE and the IB Diploma. The share of English: 89.3 per cent of hours in Early Years, 73.33 in Junior School, 28.6 in Senior School. The school does not state class sizes.
Address Av. Fuentebravía Km 1, 11500 El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz)
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · accreditationCambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE · 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
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 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 →CambridgeCambridge International Education
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
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: Primary (ages 5-11), Lower Secondary (ages 11-14), IGCSE (ages 14-16). Primary is the primary stage, ages 5 to 11: English, mathematics and science to Cambridge syllabuses. At the end of the stage a school may run the optional Checkpoint test, which is marked in Cambridge. Lower Secondary is the middle stage, ages 11 to 14, with the same optional Checkpoint test at the end. IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results In PISA 2025 the school's pupils scored an average of 528 points against 462 for Spain and 469 for the OECD: reading 539 against 451 and 461, mathematics 521 against 457 and 463, science 525 against 477 and 482. The school is a Cambridge examination centre and speaks of consistently high results in the PAU university entrance examination, but does not publish figures for the PAU, IGCSE or the IB Diploma.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓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 · Art studio · Playground
Campus: A site of 23000 square metres, of which 13000 are taken up by school buildings. Digitally equipped classrooms, science and STEAM laboratories, a media library, a music room, ICT suites, specialist rooms, art spaces, project work areas, nature corners. Sport: a heated swimming pool, padel courts, sports grounds, an indoor hall and an assembly hall for concerts and competitions. Playgrounds for each stage, a dining room with its own kitchen where Sodexo cooks to a nutritionist's menu, a snack bar, tutorial rooms, a parents' car park. Eight bus routes: Rota, Sanlúcar, Chipiona, Conil, Jerez, Chiclana, El Puerto de Santa María, Puerto Real, San Fernando and Cádiz.
Clubs and activities: German School · Chinese School · Creative Technology Club (robotics) · Primary Year 5-6 choir · Swimming · Rhythmic gymnastics · Karate · Duke of Edinburgh International Award
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
The school names summer camps in its list of services next to trips abroad, but publishes on its pages neither dates, nor ages, nor prices, nor whether children from other schools are accepted.
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
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
In its list of services the school names its own health service. The guidance department provides psychological and educational support, together with form tutors and the deputy heads for each stage; the school has a pastoral care plan and measures for pupils with special needs. Pupils arrive and leave through a separate parents' car park. The school does not name a written child protection policy, an anti-bullying policy, video surveillance or security guards on its pages.
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 data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 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 median74 "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