← Back to the rankingInternationella Engelska Skolan Skellefteå
Skelleftea, Sweden · est. 2019 · Private
Illustration · Skelleftea
Internationella Engelska Skolan Skellefteå is a bilingual school (friskola) from förskoleklass to grade 9, established in 2019, with 460 students. Two tracks share one building. The main track follows the Swedish Lgr22 curriculum, is free, with up to half of lessons in English taught by teachers from English-speaking countries and the rest in Swedish; the school says 96% of leavers qualify for gymnasiet. Since spring 2021 the school has run a fee-paying international track, IES Skellefteå International School: the Cambridge Pathway for ages 5-16, taught entirely in English, from Cambridge Primary to IGCSE exams at the end of year 9. Under Skolverket's rules for international schools it admits children who reside in Sweden temporarily, have attended school abroad extensively, plan to move abroad, or have at least one parent who is a native English speaker. For förskoleklass to grade 6 there is after-school care (fritids) from 06:00 to 17:30; breakfast and lunch are free.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $5 611 a year
56 275 SEK
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
Swedish, English
Students per teacher
On average 10 students per teacher or other support staff member.
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 The international Cambridge Pathway track (IES Skellefteå International School) costs 28138 SEK per term, 56275 SEK per year in 2026-2027. The Swedish bilingual track is free: the school is funded like municipal schools, through taxes and the skolpeng system. Breakfast and lunch are free for all students.
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. The queue does not apply to the international Cambridge Pathway track: under Skolverket's rules for international schools it admits only children who reside in Sweden temporarily (e.g. expat families), have attended school abroad extensively and wish to complete their education in Sweden, plan to relocate abroad for an extended period, or use English as a daily language with at least one parent being a native English speaker; applications are made by email to the school. Those who do not meet these criteria are welcomed to the Swedish track.
Stages and year groups Grades F-9. Two tracks. Swedish: förskoleklass and årskurs 1-9 under Lgr22, bilingual (up to half of lessons 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. In the Swedish track, year 9 students may choose to sit IGCSE English. The international Cambridge Pathway track is entirely in English: Cambridge Primary (ages 5-11: English first and second language, Mathematics, Science, Cambridge Global Perspectives, ICT integrated into subjects), Cambridge Lower Secondary (ages 11-14, same subjects) and Cambridge Upper Secondary (ages 14-16, the ICE programme) with IGCSE exams at the end of year 9 in subjects such as English, Global Perspectives, History, Mathematics, Combined Science and Spanish; students graduate after the IGCSE exams. International track students take arts, music, physical education and modern languages together with Swedish curriculum students.
Address Brännavägen 57-59, 931 44 Skellefteå
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary, Lower Secondary, 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: in the separate English-language track, IES Skellefteå International School, children follow Cambridge Primary, Lower Secondary and IGCSE.
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: 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.
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 IGCSE English, taken by choice by year 9 students in the Swedish track (school news, January 2026): 100% passed, 85% achieved grades A* to C, 65% A* or A. 96% of leavers qualify for gymnasiet; the school does not state the year.
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 reading room, a group study room and individual workspaces, with books in English and Swedish. Meals come from a local catering company: usually three dishes, one always vegetarian, all lactose-free, with allergies catered for; breakfast and lunch are free for all students. After-school care (fritids) for förskoleklass to grade 6 follows the Swedish fritidshem curriculum, open 06:00 to 17:30, also during holidays except summer weeks 27-31; staff speak Swedish and English. There is a Parent Teacher Association (PTA). It is a day school with no boarding.
Clubs and activities: Fritids (after-school club for reception to Year 6) · Junior Club · Teknikåttan (school technology and science competition) · BBC 500 Words
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.
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): two school nurses, a school counsellor, three special needs teachers, a study and careers adviser and two staff responsible for safety and a calm study environment. Students, parents and staff sign an agreement to keep the school free from vandalism, bullying and disorder; school rules also apply in after-school care.
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 data70 "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