← Back to homeHighlands School Los Fresnos
Boadilla del Monte, Spain · est. 2007 · Private
Illustration · Boadilla del Monte
Highlands School Los Fresnos is a private Catholic bilingual school in Boadilla del Monte outside Madrid, founded in 2007. It takes children from four months old and carries them to the bachillerato. It belongs to the Highlands family of schools owned by the Legionaries of Christ, and the school writes that this is the only educational group in Spain all of whose private centres are accredited as Cambridge International Schools. Its bilingualism is literal: up to the age of two each room has two teachers at once, one working in Spanish and one in English; from three a single teacher leads the whole day either in English or in Spanish; from the first year of primary half the curriculum is taught in English, and half again in the secondary school - music, art and design, technology, history, geography, economics, Global Perspectives, English and science. The Cambridge curriculum starts at five and becomes International Lower and Upper Secondary in the secondary school. A third language, French or German, begins in the sixth year of primary and runs to the end of bachillerato, aiming at B1-B2. The bachillerato is national and bilingual, with the school acting as a Cambridge English exam centre. Sport stays on its own 16500 square metres: a heated swimming pool of its own with the "Nadar es Vida" programme endorsed by the Royal Spanish Swimming Federation, multi-sport courts, a football pitch and padel courts, eleven teams and its own internal football league, the Highleague, with matches played inside the school day. The school is accredited as a Microsoft Showcase School, one of sixteen in Spain.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
English, Spanish
Languages taught
French, German
Admissions Admission runs in three steps: a conversation with the parents lasting about an hour, at which the school explains its programme; a conversation with the child, also about an hour, with psycho-pedagogical tasks by which the school assesses the prospective pupil's capacity for learning; and then enrolment through the school's own portal, with the documents uploaded and the contract signed electronically. The school names no requirement about the level of English. Admission is handled by an admissions coordinator, who can be contacted by telephone, through WhatsApp or by e-mail; the school promises to give details of deadlines, fees and payment methods after the application. The school names no separate conditions for foreign pupils, no requirements for documents from other countries and none for knowledge of Spanish.
Stages and year groups Grades early years from 4 months - 2º Bachillerato. The stages run right through: early years from four months to five, primary from six to twelve, then ESO and the two years of bachillerato. In the primary school each subject has its own teacher and its own room, and it is the pupils who move between rooms rather than the teachers - the school does this deliberately, to bring the primary school closer to the secondary. From the secondary stage it offers a term, a school year or a summer programme at its own OAK Academies in the United States, Ireland and Switzerland, at the American high schools linked to them, and short homestays in the United Kingdom.
Address Calle de la Comunidad Canaria 8, 28660 Boadilla del Monte, Madrid
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: the average access mark in the 2026 PAU was 8.2, and every one of its leavers passed for the sixth year running.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
·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 transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Makerspace
Campus: A campus in Boadilla del Monte of more than 16500 square metres, with rooms and classrooms fitted separately for each stage and classroom technology built entirely on Microsoft - the school is accredited as a Microsoft Showcase School. On the sports side: a heated pool of its own, multi-sport courts, a football pitch and padel courts. There are makerspaces, where the school runs projects on its own DIY approach, and an annual Science Fair conducted wholly in English. Lunch is cooked in the school's own kitchens, the menus are drawn up by nutritionists to the guidance of the Spanish food safety agency, and there are separate menus for children with allergies and for the youngest groups; the quality management system is certified by AENOR and the menus are supervised by the Madrid health authority.
Clubs and activities: Swimming · Football · Padel · Combined events · School newspaper · School radio · Music · Art and technology · Entrepreneurship · Debating · Public speaking · Volunteering
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 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 psycho-pedagogical support department: tutoring and mentoring, character formation programmes, a programme of virtues and a course in affective and sexual education run with the "Aprendamos a Amar" programme of the Institute of Development and the Person at the Francisco de Vitoria University. Psycho-pedagogical assessment is also part of admission. 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 data75 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