← Back to homeHoly Mary British Catholic School
Madrid, Spain · Private
Illustration · Madrid
Holy Mary British Catholic School is a private British Catholic school in the Salamanca district of Madrid, for children from two to eighteen years. The curriculum is British from Nursery 1 to Year 13: assessment by the Early Years Learning Goals, GL Assessments and CEM/Durham tests, then IGCSE and A-Level; the school calls Year 13 its oldest class as things stand. All correspondence with the family is in English. All teachers trained in the United Kingdom or Ireland and have long worked with the British national curriculum. In the Sixth Form pupils usually take four A-Levels plus preparation for Spanish university entry, and A-Level Spanish in Year 12 is compulsory; for Spanish state universities the school arranges the UNED accreditation and prepares for the PCE examinations. The school is a member of NABSS and CISC. It grew out of the Todo Niños nurseries, which its founders Marta and Maria Riva de Aldama ran for twenty years. Religion lessons run every week, with three diocesan priests at hand. According to the school, for 2020-2025 all its leavers entered their first-choice university, 60 per cent universities in the top hundred of the Times world ranking, 40 per cent in the top two hundred; by name it cites Oxford, King's College London, Carlos III and ICAI. Clubs run Monday to Thursday and end by 17:30. The school does not publish its fees.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level
Admits from
2 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English
Admissions Admission goes through the form on the website and a visit to the school by appointment. The form asks for the child's details, the current and desired year group, the current education system - British, Spanish LOMLOE, IB, French, American or other - the previous school and the reason for the move, and for both parents their nationality and occupation. All correspondence with the school is in English, and the school states this as a condition on its admissions page. Entry runs from Nursery 1 to Year 13, from two to eighteen years. The school names no entrance tests, no documents and no conditions for children from other countries.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery 1 (ages 2-3) - Year 13 (ages 17-18). The British ladder with Spanish equivalents named by the school itself: Nursery 1 and 2, Reception, Years 1-7 to the end of primary school, Years 8-11 the four years of ESO, Years 12-13 the two years of the bachillerato. The infant department from Nursery 1 to Year 2 is housed separately, Years 3 to 13 in interconnected buildings on Cinca and Arga. IGCSE is sat in Year 11, A-Level in Years 12 and 13; the school calls Year 13 its oldest class.
Address Calle de Cinca 20, 28002 Madrid
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmeNABSS · 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: 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 →NABSSschool network
NABSS (National Association of British Schools in Spain) is not an owner of schools but an association of British schools in Spain, founded in 1978 by a group of leading British schools in the country. According to the association, it has more than 80 member schools, which educate more than 49,000 children and employ more than 5,000 teachers. Only schools officially authorised by the Spanish authorities as foreign schools teaching the British education system and certified by the British Council after inspections can be members; new schools that are still developing are not admitted straight away. The association represents the schools' common interests, encourages collaboration between them and holds an annual conference; its school finder places member schools in Madrid, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Andalusia, the Balearic and Canary Islands, Murcia and other regions. The association's site is nabss.org.
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
Where leavers go: University of Oxford · King's College London · Universidad Carlos III de Madrid · ICAI (Universidad Pontificia Comillas)
According to the school, for 2020-2025 all leavers obtained a place at their first-choice university, 60 per cent study at universities in the top hundred of the Times world ranking, 40 per cent in the top two hundred. By name the school cites admissions to Oxford, King's College London, Carlos III and ICAI; the other universities are shown on the site as logos.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: Two sites in the Salamanca district: the infant department (Nursery 1 - Year 2) at Alfonso Rodriguez Santamaria 23-25 and the junior and secondary school (Year 3 - Year 13) in interconnected buildings at Cinca 20, 22, 24 and Arga 17 and 19. The site shows a science laboratory; the school lists no other rooms - library, gym, grounds.
Clubs and activities (8): Choir · Robotics · Programming · Dramatic arts · Ballet · Flamenco · Sport · Art classes
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
✓Teacher qualifications
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
What the listings show: All teachers trained in the United Kingdom or Ireland and have extensive experience with the British national curriculum
All teachers, the school says, trained in the United Kingdom or Ireland and have long taught the British national curriculum. In the Sixth Form pupils work with a university counsellor, tutors and mentors. The school does not publish the number of teachers, class sizes or the pupil-teacher ratio.
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
·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 names individual pastoral care and, in the Sixth Form, a network of tutors, mentors and counsellors; it declares pupil wellbeing an absolute priority. Three diocesan priests give religion lessons, spiritual guidance and annual retreats. An ethics channel and a compliance section are published. The school names no medical staff, no security staff, no video surveillance, no child protection policy and no anti-bullying protocol.
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%)85 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 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 data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median67 "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