La Nucia, Spain · PrivateElian's British School of La Nucía is a private British school in La Nucía near Alicante, on the Costa Blanca: 13 minutes from Benidorm, 19 from Altea. Children are taken from the age of one and stay to eighteen. Teaching is immersive, in English; on top of the British curriculum come the compulsory subjects of the Spanish one, with German and Valencian added as languages. The shape of the senior stage is unusual for Spain: up to Year 11 a pupil gains a British qualification through IGCSEs and the Spanish ESO equivalence, and in Years 12-13 the school runs the IB Diploma - it is authorised to award it and calls itself an IB World School; for those the Diploma does not suit, or who do not meet its entry requirements, the school has recently opened an A-Level route of three subjects - Spanish, business studies and information technology - with access to Spanish private universities through the PCE examinations. The campus is large: 53 spacious air-conditioned classrooms with Clevertouch panels, 3 IT rooms, rooms for art and design, music and drama, a dance studio, an auditorium, a library with a press resource centre, and the only school beach volleyball court in the province of Alicante. Foreign pupils without Spanish are given Spanish as a second language. In summer the school runs a camp on its own campus for children aged 1 to 16, its own pupils and others. The school does not state tuition fees in text: it posts its price list as an image and invites families to request it.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmePearson · authorised programmeIB · DP · authorised programmeCIS · membershipDukes Education · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
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: IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →It gives a school approved centre status: that means Pearson exams can be sat in the school itself. What is checked is the premises, the equipment, the secure storage of papers and the presence of trained invigilators.
What the badge means for this school. The school can run Pearson exams on its own premises. The status says nothing about teaching, about results or about the school itself: any school able to run an exam securely holds it. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Which Pearson qualifications this school is approved for is not stated here.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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: DP (ages 16-19). 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 →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 belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
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.
Dukes Education is a British private education group founded by Aatif Hassan in 2015. It describes itself as a family of nurseries, schools and colleges in the UK and Europe; besides schools, the group runs summer schools, day camps and university application consultancies. The group does not give a total number of schools on its pages; its Europe section lists schools in Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Switzerland, and its menu also has a North America section. In Spain the group lists 6 schools: Engage International School (Majadahonda, Madrid), International English School of Castellón, English School of Asturias, Colegio Inglés Zaragoza, Elian's British School of La Nucía and Colegio Internacional de Valladolid. The group's site is dukeseducation.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.