← Back to homeHighlands School Barcelona
Esplugues de Llobregat, Spain · Private
Illustration · Esplugues de Llobregat
Highlands School Barcelona is a private Catholic school in Esplugues de Llobregat outside Barcelona, taking children from the age of one up to eighteen. It belongs to the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ and to the Regnum Christi network of schools - seventy years old and working in thirteen countries, by its own account - and to the Highlands family. The school calls itself the only private Catholic school in Barcelona holding Cambridge International School status. It runs the national curriculum alongside the Cambridge one from the early years: English immersion starts at half the time at age one, rises to a hundred per cent at two and settles at sixty per cent from three to five, and sixty per cent of subjects are then taught in English through both the primary and the secondary school. In the primary school Global English, music, SpeakArt, natural and social science, ICT and PE are in English, mathematics, religion and Spanish language in Spanish, and Catalan stands as a subject of its own. In the secondary school IGCSEs in biology, economics and art and design are added, and French runs as an option from the first year of ESO with preparation for the DELF Junior. The bachillerato is national only, with a science line in English: physics, biology and chemistry are taught in English. The school measures English in certificates: all of its pupils reach B2 by the third year of ESO and 72 per cent reach C1 or C2 by the end of bachillerato. The campus covers 19000 square metres, 10000 of them sports facilities and green space, and it is still being built: a fourth phase adds six classrooms, an art room and a laboratory. There is a kitchen and dining hall of its own, a school nurse, a library, a chapel and a vegetable garden. The school states a ratio of seven pupils per teacher.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
English, Spanish
Students per teacher
7 pupils per teacher
Admissions Admission runs in three steps: a first conversation with the family, which includes a tour of the buildings and an account of the educational programme; a second conversation with the child, at which the school sets tasks and looks at their school skills; and then enrolment through the school's own portal with the contract signed electronically. The enquiry form lists the stages of entry from the Bunnies group at age one to the second year of bachillerato. The school names no requirement about the level of English.
Stages and year groups Grades Bunnies group from age 1 - 2º Bachillerato, to age 18. The stages run right through: early years from one to five, six years of primary, four years of ESO and two years of bachillerato. The English share rises and falls with age: 50 per cent at one year old, 100 per cent at two, 60 per cent from three and on to the end of the secondary school. IGCSEs are taken subject by subject in the secondary school, and the bachillerato is national only. From the secondary stage the school offers trips to France, Portugal, Italy and the United Kingdom and programmes at boarding schools in the United States, Ireland, Canada and Switzerland.
Address Carrer de Manuel Florentín Pérez 26, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE · authorised programmeColegios RC · school is part of the networkschool 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
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 →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.
Colegios RCschool network
Colegios RC is the Regnum Christi network of private Catholic schools in Spain; the network's site is run by the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ. According to the network, it has 7 schools in Spain and more than 7,800 students: in the Community of Madrid (Boadilla del Monte, Pozuelo de Alarcón, La Moraleja), in Barcelona (Esplugues de Llobregat and Sarrià), in Valencia and in Seville. They are Highlands School El Encinar, Highlands School Los Fresnos, Highlands School Barcelona, Highlands School Sevilla, Everest School, Cumbres School and Col·legi Reial Monestir de Santa Isabel. The site gives different figures for the international Regnum Christi network - 139 schools in 18 countries on the home page and "more than 140 schools" on the international page - and we quote both. The network gives no founding year and speaks of "more than 70 years" of experience; its site is colegiosrc.es.
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.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results The school publishes results of the Spanish university entrance examination: every one of its 2024 leavers passed the PAU, the average English mark in the 2025 PAU was 8.15, 75 per cent of pupils scored above 9 in science-line mathematics, and the school stands eighteenth in the list of Catalan schools by average PAU marks. On language certificates: 100 per cent of pupils hold B2 by the third year of ESO and 72 per cent hold C1 or C2 in the bachillerato.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: A campus in Esplugues de Llobregat of 19000 square metres, 10000 of them given over to sports facilities and green space, with a separate area for each stage. The buildings hold classrooms with technology, laboratories, an audiovisual room, a library, a chapel, a dining hall, a vegetable garden, padel courts and table tennis tables. The fourth building phase, opened in 2026, adds 1170 square metres: six classrooms, an art room, a science laboratory and new sports and common spaces. The kitchen and dining hall are the school's own, the service is run by Scolarest, the menus are drawn up by dietitians and checked by the school nurse: separate menus by stage, menus for allergies and intolerances, nothing fried for the early years, and sugar and ultra-processed food taken out of the afternoon snacks.
Clubs and activities: Padel · Table tennis · Theatre · Public speaking · Debating · Programming and robotics · Volunteering
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
In summer 2026, from 25 June to 24 July, the school runs two kinds of Summer School on site: Infants Summer School for children aged 1-5 and Sport Summer School for ages 6-13, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 16:30; groups are formed by the 2025-2026 school year class. The first two-day week, 25-26 June, costs 90 euros, one week 225 euros, two 445, three 670, four 830; enrolling for 3 weeks or more gives a 10 percent discount, early care from 8:00 to 9:00 costs 30 euros a week, payment in advance.
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
The school states the ratio itself as a figure on its home page; it publishes no number of teachers, no qualifications and no class size.
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
The school has a school nurse of its own, who checks the dining hall menus. Individual tutorials with families run through the school year alongside a programme of personal support for the pupil; the school publishes no child protection policy of its own.
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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data80 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