← Back to the rankingInternational British School of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania · est. 2000 · Private
Illustration · Bucharest
The International British School of Bucharest (IBSB) is a private, fee-paying British day school in central Bucharest, District 2, for children aged 3 to 18. The school opened in 2000 and is run by the Fundația International British School of Bucharest. It teaches the National Curriculum of England from Nursery and Reception to Year 13: students take Cambridge Checkpoint in Year 9, Cambridge IGCSE in Years 10-11 and Cambridge AS and A-Level in Years 12-13; the school is also an accredited Edexcel centre. The language of instruction is English: the school says pupils use English in class. There are 430 pupils, about 160 in Primary and 270 in Secondary; about 30% are international students from more than 25 countries. The school says IBSB was the first DfE-inspected school in Romania; the latest ISI inspection in 2026 confirmed it meets all British Schools Overseas Standards, and the 2022 inspection gave the highest judgment. The school is accredited by the Romanian agency ARACIP, so graduates can also enter Romanian universities; it is a COBIS Accredited Member and an AoBSO member, a High Performance Learning school with the World Class School Award, a NASEN member and a member of the Black Sea Schools Association.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $14 517–25 249 a year
12 850–22 350 EUR
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level
Admits from
3 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Romanian, French, German, Spanish, Italian
Class size
no more than 22 pupils per class in Primary and no more than 23 in Secondary
About the fees Annual fees for 2026-2027: Nursery half day 7350 euro; Nursery and Reception full day 12850 euro; Primary (Years 1-6) 18150 euro; Years 7-9 20670 euro; Years 10-13 22350 euro. Fees are paid in two instalments: for 31 August to 28 February and for 1 March to 25 June. The youngest of two or more siblings gets a 10% discount. Fees include some clubs and activities, local trips, textbooks and software access, stationery and IGCSE, AS and A Level examinations. Some clubs, residential trips, transport, lunch, uniform, the events fund, exam re-takes and remarks, and extra English lessons in Secondary are charged separately. The school may adjust fees with 90 days' notice.
Admissions The school has an open enrolment policy and does not exclude students based on academic ability: all new students are assessed before they start so that a programme matches their level. Nursery takes children aged 3 or older on 1 September. Children can enrol at any time during the school year if a place is available; new applications for September are processed from 1 March, after re-enrolment, and earlier applicants join the waiting list. No minimum level of English is required: students with low English get extra small-group lessons, charged as a supplement in Secondary. The minimum stay is one whole academic year. Enrolment requires a registration file, a medical form, two photographs, parents' passports and the child's passport or birth certificate, school records for the past three years (translated into English), a reference from the previous school and, for Years 12-13, an A Level reference. About 30% of students are international, from more than 25 countries; a child can spend a trial day at the school before enrolling.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery, Reception, 1-13 (Year 1 - Year 13). British stages: Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery from age 3, Reception), Primary - Key Stage 1 (Years 1-2) and Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6), Secondary - Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9, Cambridge Checkpoint in Year 9), Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11, Cambridge IGCSE, 8 to 12 subjects) and Sixth Form (Years 12-13, Cambridge AS and A-Level, 3 to 5 subjects). The school has been an accredited Cambridge International exam centre since 2001 and an Edexcel centre since 2012. All Primary pupils learn Romanian: native speakers follow an adapted Romanian curriculum, others learn it as a foreign language. There is no separate Romanian national curriculum track and no IB.
Address Strada Agricultori 21-25, sector 2, București
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmeBSO · accreditationCOBIS · membershipHMC · part of the allianceThe Cambridge register names the school as its centre: it teaches Cambridge IGCSE and A Level courses. It is inspected under the British Schools Overseas scheme, is a member of COBIS and an associate member of HMC. For Pearson it serves only as an exam centre.
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), 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 →BSOBritish government inspection of schools overseas
A scheme of the UK Department for Education: a school abroad is inspected against the standards for independent schools in England, including safeguarding and the standards for boarding. The inspections are done by independent inspectorates approved by the department, and the inspectorates themselves are monitored annually by Ofsted. The reports are published in full on the government website.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →COBISCouncil of British International Schools
An association of British schools abroad with a quality inspection of its own. It has nine membership categories, and the word "accredited" appears in seven of them, although COBIS does its own inspection in one: in the rest it recognises an accreditation granted by somebody else.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →HMCConference of heads of British independent schools
It is a head who becomes a member of this conference, not a school: membership is offered to the head, and in some categories the logo is marked as personal. A badge on a school's website means its head belongs to the conference. For full international membership there is a check - two people, two days - but no live external inspection is required.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to this network. That is not a quality inspection: a network is something a school joins, while an accreditation is something a school goes through. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results IGCSE 2025-2026: 98% of grades E to A*, 92% C or above, 81% B or above, 57% A and A* (against a UK independent school average of 48.1%). AS Level 2026: 97% pass, 81% C or above, 59% B or above, 34% grade A. A Level 2026: 100% pass, 82% C or above, 58% B or above. All 2024-2025 graduates received university offers, 75% from their first choice.
Where leavers go: Bocconi University · University of Manchester · University of Amsterdam · Cardiff University · Delft University of Technology · University of Toronto · University of Bologna · University of the Arts London (UAL) · University College London (UCL) · King's College London · Erasmus University Rotterdam · IE University and others, 14 universities in the school's list in all
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
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Playground
Clubs and activities: Debate Club · Journalism Club · STEM Club · Logic Club · Kumon Maths and English · Drama Club · Future Fashion Club · Arts and Crafts · Sewing Club · The Big Sing Along · Mandarin Club · Sezătoarea Creativă (Romanian folk crafts) · Football · Tennis · Swimming · Karate · Ballet · Capoeira · Wow Lab · LEGO Challenge · Kids Yoga · Duke of Edinburgh's International Award · Community Action Service · Model United Nations
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 sizein the key facts above
What the listings show: in Primary all class teachers are native English speakers assisted by Romanian teaching assistants; in Secondary about 50% of staff are native English speakers
In Primary all class teachers are native English speakers, each assisted by a Romanian teaching assistant; in Secondary about 50% of staff are native English speakers, the rest are qualified teachers of other nationalities. The school runs a Teacher Training Centre: since 2012 it has offered Early Career Teacher induction under the British model, plus Cambridge and Edexcel courses for teachers.
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 training
✓Anti-bullying policy
Child safeguarding is the school's top priority: all staff receive annual training, key staff complete advanced safeguarding and safer recruitment training, and staff checks follow British standards. The school has a nurse and two full-time student counsellors whom students can see in confidence, teacher and prefect mentoring systems and zero tolerance of bullying. It publishes child safeguarding, anti-bullying, e-safety, earthquake, fire, lockdown and school visitor policies.
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 data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data80 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data65 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.
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