← Back to homeGranada International Montessori School
Gójar, Spain · est. 2015 · Private
Illustration · Gójar
Granada International Montessori School is a private Montessori school in Gójar, ten kilometres from Granada at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. It began very small: on 7 January 2015 it opened in a playroom in central Granada with three children and one Montessori guide who was still in training herself; nine months later there was no room left and the school moved to Gójar. At its tenth anniversary it has 80 pupils and a team of fifteen. It takes children from three to twelve, and the stages run as Montessori environments: Infant Community, Children's House from three to six, and Elementary split into lower and upper. The main curriculum is in English, and the school teaches Spanish language and culture as a subject of its own, so children have lessons in both languages. The school sets no homework and no examinations at all: work is done in mixed-age groups with Montessori materials and at the child's own choosing. The day runs from 8:30 to 15:30, the school cooks lunch itself, and there is always a vegetarian option on the menu. The grounds are a garden, a vegetable plot the children run themselves, and play areas with soft sand. From this school year music is taught on the Serclet system. For children from nought to three there is a separate partner project next door, Montessori Community Granada - the school itself does not take children that young.
Key facts
Languages of instruction
English
Admissions Admission starts with an email to the admissions office and continues through observation rather than a test. The family is invited to see the premises; children between three and six can be watched from a dedicated observatory - adults only, in silence; a child over six may spend a whole week in the classroom before enrolment. Preference goes to families who already have children at the school, to families firmly committed to the Montessori philosophy, and to bilingual or native English-speaking families; after that the queue runs by date of application, with returning pupils and their siblings ahead of everyone. The school looks at the child's level of English, at the family's commitment to Montessori and to international education, and it recommends previous Montessori experience for children over six. It states the aim of admission plainly: to build a balanced, mixed-age and heterogeneous group, with no distinction by race, beliefs, orientation or religion. About citizenship and residence the school writes nothing: it has no rules for families moving from other countries and no Spanish requirement, and it names teaching children of diverse cultures as its task.
Stages and year groups Grades Infant Community, Children's House ages 3-6, Lower and Upper Elementary, ages 3 to 12 in all. The school names its stages by their Montessori names: Infant Community, Children's House from three to six, and Elementary split into Lower and Upper. The school as a whole covers ages three to twelve; children from nought to three are taught by a separate partner project, Montessori Community Granada, and not by the school itself. The school day runs from 8:30 to 15:30, Monday to Friday. In Children's House the work is organised in five areas - practical life, sensorial, language, mathematics, and art and culture - with space and time set aside for free play, with a particular emphasis on movement.
Address Carretera de la Zubia 12, 18150 Gójar
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationschool 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 →Montessori
The pedagogy of Maria Montessori: a child chooses the activity, works at their own pace with special materials, and mixed-age groups are arranged so that older children teach the younger ones. It is used most often in the nursery and primary stages.
What this means for this school. The name Montessori belongs to nobody: any school may call itself a Montessori school, and there is no single body that checks this. There are associations that train teachers and recognise schools, but membership of them is voluntary, and our entry means exactly that the school describes itself this way. This pedagogy has no leaving certificate, so what to look at is what the school finishes with.
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 hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Playground
Campus: The school stands on the Zubia road in Gójar and was noticeably rebuilt over the summer before the new school year: the furniture was refurbished, the upper Elementary classroom was completely redone, new shelving went into Children's House, and more was planted in the garden. The grounds are a garden, a vegetable plot the children run themselves, and play areas with soft sand and wooden structures; indoors there is a separate art and music area, and every classroom is set up as a ready working environment where a child can work at a table, on a rug or on the floor. The school cooks its lunches itself, the menu is home-style and changes often, and there is always a vegetarian option.
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 sizenot stated
At the school's tenth anniversary its team numbers fifteen, and all the teachers and assistants have Montessori training. The school does not name qualifications individually, nor the pupil-to-adult ratio, nor the size of its groups.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
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%)60 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 data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data65 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 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.
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