← Back to the rankingInternationella Engelska Skolan Karlstad
Karlstad, Sweden · est. 2009 · Private
Illustration · Karlstad
Internationella Engelska Skolan Karlstad is a free bilingual school (friskola) for grades 4-9 in Gruvlyckan, established in 2009, with 420 students; the school says it is one of the largest schools in the city for these grades. It follows the Swedish curriculum; mathematics, English and science are taught in English with the support of Swedish teaching materials. About half of the teachers come from other countries, and students and staff together speak more than 30 mother tongues. The school says 91% of leavers qualify for gymnasiet and that there are 8 students per teacher or support staff member. Students can choose to study Cambridge IGCSE English and Mathematics; the school takes part in Erasmus+ and eTwinning and offers voluntary exchanges for students of Spanish and French. Students have won regional mathematics finals and language competitions.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
Swedish, English
Languages taught
Spanish, French
Students per teacher
8 students per teacher or support staff member (school figure); the average across the owner's schools is 10.
Class size
Maximum class size: 28 students in förskoleklass and grades 1-3, 30 in grades 4-5, 32 in grades 6-9.
About the fees Tuition is free: the school is funded like municipal schools, through taxes and the skolpeng system, and parents pay no fees; school lunch is also free.
Admissions The school is free and places are allocated by queue on a first come, first served basis; siblings have priority if the older child attends or has been admitted when the younger one starts. A child can be placed in the queue from 1 February of the year after birth; applications are open all year and students are admitted during the year when places are available. There are no entrance exams or tests. Families can queue while living abroad, but places are offered only to children registered as resident in Sweden (folkbokförd); families without a Swedish personal identity number who plan to move are asked to contact the school directly, and those without Swedish BankID submit a paper application form. Good English is not required to start. Children offered a place are invited to a workshop day before starting.
Stages and year groups Grades 4-9. Swedish grundskola, grades 4-9 (årskurs 4-9), under Lgr22, bilingual: mathematics, English and science are taught in English. The school follows the Swedish curriculum (Lgr22). The school's owner is an authorised Cambridge International Education organisation; it says that in most of its schools students can choose to study for and sit Cambridge IGCSE exams. At the school itself students can choose to study Cambridge IGCSE English and Mathematics as an additional challenge alongside the Swedish curriculum. The school names no other Cambridge International subjects.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE · authorised programmeInternationella Engelska Skolan · school is part of the networkThe main curriculum is Swedish, with about half of the subjects taught in English. The Cambridge register names the school as its centre: as an option it teaches Cambridge IGCSE English and Mathematics.
school 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). 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.
Internationella Engelska Skolanschool network
Internationella Engelska Skolan (IES) is a Swedish network of tuition-free independent schools (friskolor). The network says it is one of Sweden's largest operators of compulsory schools: about 30 thousand students in 46 schools from Trelleborg in the south to Skellefteå in the north. The schools follow the Swedish curriculum and teach about half of their subjects in English. The schools are owned by Internationella Engelska Skolan i Sverige AB; since 2020 the majority of it has belonged to the investment firm Paradigm Capital. Some schools of the network are Cambridge centres and run separate IGCSE courses.
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 91% of leavers qualify for gymnasiet (upper secondary school); the school does not state the year. The school does not publish Cambridge IGCSE exam results.
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
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: A library with a librarian, averaging 300 visits a day, with new books every month, books in 7 languages, a group work area and reading and writing competitions. Lunch is free: several dishes, a daily vegetarian option and a salad buffet; teachers eat with students, and a food council with students from every year group meets each term; medical diets are provided with a certificate. An activity room (Aktivitetsrummet) for grades 8-9 with board games and theme weeks. Junior Club for grades 4-5 opens from 07:30 in the morning and after lessons until 17:00 on school days, with a snack and homework help. There is a Parent Teacher Association (PTA). It is a day school with no boarding.
Clubs and activities: Junior Club · Aktivitetsrummet (activity room for Years 8-9) · Matrådet (food council) · Buddies · eTwinning · Erasmus+ · PTQ Math Competition · Language Olympics · Culture Day
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
About half of lessons are taught in English by teachers from English-speaking countries (the school names Canada, the USA and the UK), the rest in Swedish. According to the organisation that runs the school, in 2024/2025 85% of teachers at its schools were fully qualified, about 6 in 10 of them with a Swedish teaching degree and the rest with a foreign one. At this school about half of the teachers come from other countries, and most are qualified in the subjects they teach.
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
✓Counsellor
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
Student health services (elevhälsa, Student Care Team): a head of student care, a study and careers adviser, two school nurses (for grades 4-6 and 7-9), counsellors for each stage, a school psychologist, pedagogical facilitators and special needs units; all team members are part of the anti-bullying team. Each class has two student Buddies, the municipal field group and Karlstad youth police visit regularly, and the school works with Druvan, Tobaksbarn and Tjejjouren; mentors contact parents monthly.
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 data75 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data70 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "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