← Back to homeInstitució La Farga
Sant Cugat del Valles, Spain · est. 1969 · Private
Illustration · Sant Cugat del Valles
Institució La Farga is a large private school in Sant Cugat del Vallès near Barcelona, opened in 1969 as the first school of the Institució Familiar d'Educació group; the group now has thirteen schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. In its site title the school calls itself concertada, that is working under an agreement with the Catalan authorities, and on its about page private. It takes a child from nursery to university entrance, including higher vocational training, and gives figures: 1608 pupils, 1119 families, 198 staff. There are three sites: the main one on Camí al Papiol, the nursery and infant school on C/ Nicaragua in Valldoreix and the first primary grades on C/ Veneçuela there too. The project is Christian in origin: the group's schools were founded by families inspired by Saint Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, and the school gives a Christian formation to those parents and pupils who want it. The language model is trilingual: Catalan is the language of the school, alongside it go Spanish and English, and from the fifth grade a fourth language is added, German or French. La Farga has become a Cambridge International School: the Cambridge primary curriculum is being introduced from the first to the fifth grade and will be extended to the sixth, more than 40 percent of hours are in English, and pupils sit Cambridge Primary Checkpoint. From the third year of ESO pupils can study in parallel at an American online school and earn a dual diploma. Every pupil has a tutor: a meeting with the pupil every two weeks and with the family once a term. The group's international programme starts in the fifth grade: nine weeks with an Irish family and a local school for sixth-graders and first-year ESO pupils, the British boarding school Moor Park, and exchanges with France, Germany, Vienna and Philadelphia.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary · National programme
Languages of instruction
Catalan, Spanish, English
Languages taught
German, French
Admissions Admission goes through the general pre-registration of the Catalan Department of Education: the family applies within its dates, electronically, and those who find that difficult are helped at the school office. For the 2025-2026 school year pre-registration for infant and primary school ran from 12 to 26 March and for ESO from 14 to 26 March; only those moving from another school, from I2 to I3 and from the sixth grade to the first year of ESO apply. The family book or another proof of filiation, the applicant's identity document, the identity document of a pupil over 14 and the health card are required; priority criteria (large or single-parent family, disability, siblings at the school, a parent working at the school and others) are proved with separate documents. A pupil entering the Catalan education system for the first time without its RALC identifier can also apply, attaching proof of filiation. The school publishes lists of admitted pupils and waiting lists. Before pre-registration the school offers a personal interview and visit, in person or online, through a form on the site or a separate telephone line for new families.
Stages and year groups Grades nursery (Llar 0) - 2nd year of bachillerato, plus higher vocational training. Stages: Llar nursery, infant school I3-I5, primary school from the first to the sixth grade, ESO from the first to the fourth year, two years of bachillerato and higher vocational training (CFGS, including a new course in marketing and advertising). The bachillerato offers two official tracks, humanities and social sciences and science and technology, with subjects of the arts bachillerato as options; the school day runs from 8:20 to 16:45 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and to 13:55 on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Cambridge primary curriculum is being introduced from the first to the fifth grade, in time up to the sixth; from the third year of ESO an American dual diploma with Academica International Studies is possible. In the infant school a year group has up to four classes, and in primary school also four, A-D.
Address Camí al Papiol, 36, 08195 Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary · authorised programmeInstitució Familiar d'Educació · 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). 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.
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.
Institució Familiar d'Educacióschool network
Institució Familiar d'Educació is a group of schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands founded in 1960 on the initiative of a group of families; its first school, La Farga, opened in October 1969. According to its site, the group now has 8 schools, 8,000 students, 5,000 families and 700 staff. The schools are in Sant Cugat del Vallès (La Farga), Bellaterra (La Vall), Terrassa (Airina), Girona (Les Alzines), Alpicat near Lleida, Jorba near Igualada, Constantí and La Canonja near Tarragona, and Palma. The schools are state-funded under agreement; the group says the Opus Dei prelature offers spiritual guidance to students and families who want it. The legal entity named on the site is Institució Familiar d'Educació, S.A.; the group's site is institucio.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
Exam results The school publishes: 100 percent passed the PAU university entrance examination, 89 percent of those enrolled in bachillerato pass it, and over five years 97 percent passed on average; over three years 94.3 percent completed bachillerato. The average PAU score in the 2020-2021 school year was 7.10, 0.3 above the Catalan average; in 2021 three pupils received a special distinction with an average above 9. The academic level rating is 8.13. In English tests 88 percent of sixth-grade pupils and 89 percent of fourth-grade pupils are in the top band; on average 43 percent finish bachillerato at B2 or above, and last year 28 pupils finished with B2, 12 with C1 and 1 with C2. All 16 pupils on the American dual diploma completed it.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Art studio
Campus: A campus on Camí al Papiol in natural surroundings with good links to the town: teaching spaces with modern technology and extensive recreation areas; the nursery and infant school and the first primary grades are in separate buildings in Valldoreix. The school names laboratories, an Art Studio, an atelier in the infant school, a school hall for performances, and a canteen with its own kitchen and a monthly menu. Eleven bus routes across the Vallès, and the FGC suburban train stops by the school, at Mira-sol station, every 12 minutes.
Clubs and activities (11): Sports club · Language school (English, German) · Music school · Art · Drama and musical · Robotics · Reading club · European Youth Parliament · Subject olympiads · First Lego League · Azobe volunteering
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 sizenot stated
The school names 198 staff for 1608 pupils and states that 71 percent of teachers took professional development in the last school year. The team page lists more than a hundred people by name: the leadership (the director Mario González and deputies for families, studies and training), nursery and infant school teachers, form tutors of primary, ESO and bachillerato, teachers of English, including native speakers, of German and of French, two psychologists, teachers of higher vocational training and chaplains. Every pupil has a personal tutor who meets the pupil every two weeks and the family once a term; there are more than 3500 such interviews with families a year.
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 policynot stated on the website
The school team includes two psychologists, one for primary and one for ESO and bachillerato, and a nursery coordinator who is responsible for the medical room. Among the school documents it publishes a coexistence plan, an equality plan, the centre organisation and operation rules and rules on tablets, devices and mobile telephones; there is an ethical code and a whistleblowing box. The school names no security staff and no video surveillance.
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 data70 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 median95 "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