← Back to homeEmilio Sánchez American School
El Prat de Llobregat, Spain · est. 1999 · Private
Illustration · El Prat de Llobregat
Emilio Sánchez American School is the American school of the Emilio Sánchez tennis academy and has been running since 1999; it stands not in Barcelona itself but in El Prat de Llobregat, on the C-31 motorway, twenty minutes from the centre of Barcelona. In Catalonia the school is recognised as a foreign school (Centro Extranjero), it is accredited by MSA, and its elementary school is an IB World School with the Primary Years Programme. Grades run from first to twelfth: elementary 1-5, middle 6-8 and high school 9-12, ending with an American high school diploma and Advanced Placement courses. The school is small: 120 pupils from 40 countries, 15 per class on average, 24 teachers, many with master's and doctoral degrees. The language of instruction and administration is English; Spanish and Catalan are taught as subjects at native and non-native level, and pupils for whom English is not the first language get paid ELL support. The older pupils' day is tied to tennis: in middle and high school it runs until 17:50 and 18:30, and intensive academy training is the main after-school activity. The campus surrounds a nineteenth-century masia: tennis and padel courts, a gym, a swimming pool, a riding area, a library, a laboratory and a restaurant. The school's second site is in Naples, Florida. By the school's list, its leavers have studied at Columbia, Cornell, New York University, UCLA, Berkeley, Bocconi, ESADE and King's College London.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $13 048–15 059 a year
11 550–13 330 EUR
Programmes
IB · PYP · AP · American programme
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Spanish, Catalan
Students
120 pupils from 40 countries.
About the fees The school publishes its fees itself, for the 2026-2027 school year, as annual and semester amounts: elementary (grades 1-5) 13330 euros a year or 6665 a semester, middle (6-8) 11550 or 5775, high school (9-12) 12720 or 6360. Paying for the year by 31 August gives a 3 per cent discount, a sibling 5 per cent; paying in instalments adds 5 per cent to the total.
Admissions The school admits foreigners: it has pupils of more than 40 nationalities, and it advises those who need a visa to apply early, since a visa takes one to two months. An application requires the form, certified school records for the last three academic years in PDF and, where needed, their certified English translation; the application fee is 250 euros and non-refundable. Pupils join in the autumn or spring semester, but full-year applicants have priority; twelfth grade is admitted for the full year only. The language of instruction and administration is English: new pupils for whom it is not the first language sit an English placement test in their first week and, if their level is insufficient, must attend additional language classes.
Stages and year groups Grades grade 1 - grade 12. Elementary school - grades one to five on the IB PYP, from 8:45 to 16:00; middle school - grades six to eight, from 8:00 to 17:50; high school - grades nine to twelve, from 8:00 to 18:30, depending on the programme. The school has no kindergarten or preparatory year. It ends with an American high school diploma, with Advanced Placement courses in high school.
Address Autovía de Castelldefels (C-31), Km. 191, 08820 El Prat de Llobregat
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationIB · PYP · authorised programmeCollege Board · 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
MSAMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
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 →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). 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.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Authorisation here runs a year at a time: the register lists the school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
American programme
The American school programme, with the High School Diploma at the end. It usually comes together with AP courses, which the College Board stands behind, and with an American accreditation - MSA, NEASC or Cognia.
What this means for this school. The diploma is written out by the school itself: the American programme has no common leaving exam, and the content of the senior years is set by the school. Outside checking therefore rests on two things here - the accreditation of the school, and the AP exams if the school runs them.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Where leavers go: Columbia University · Cornell University · New York University · University of California, Berkeley · UCLA · Rice University · Emory University · Georgia Tech · University of Virginia · Wake Forest University · Pepperdine University · Lehigh University
and others, 24 universities in the school's list in allThe school publishes a list of the universities its leavers have attended, without years or numbers, and notes that the list of acceptances would be considerably longer. Besides those named, it includes more than forty American universities and colleges, from Auburn and Bradley to the University of South Florida and West Virginia University, and among European ones also European University Barcelona and University of Richmond in London.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
✓Boarding
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: A campus in El Prat de Llobregat, twenty minutes from the centre of Barcelona: school buildings beside tennis and padel courts, a fully equipped gym, a swimming pool, a riding area, a large pond and a nineteenth-century masia. For study there is a growing library and a science laboratory; meals are served at La Masía restaurant and a cafeteria; the campus map shows a residence together with the school's administration. The school runs daily transport.
Clubs and activities (4): Emilio Sánchez Tennis Academy · Student Council · Eco Committee · Spirit Houses (eight houses)
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
In summer the academy runs an intensive tennis course on the campus - the school names it in its general information, from 21 to 25 June 2027. The school announces no academic summer school; its file gives no price for the course.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
✓Students per teacher or class sizein the key facts above
In its general information the school names 24 teachers and 7 administrative staff for 120 pupils; the staff page lists 30 people by name with their degrees - among them the head, Mel Rose (BMus, PGCE, NPQH), and teachers with master's and doctoral degrees, for example a doctorate in environmental chemistry for a science teacher. The school writes that many of its teachers hold master's degrees and doctorates and that they are as varied in origin as the pupils: Irish, Spanish, Colombian, Dutch, British, American, Uruguayan. Classes average 15 pupils.
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 counselor, a psychologist and a learning specialist, as well as a mental coach's office. The school states that it does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin or disability; on trips children are accompanied by the school's teachers. The school names no medical staff, no security and no written child protection policy.
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%)77 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data70 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)95 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data95 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data70 "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 8 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