← Back to homeLa Salle Bonanova
Barcelona, Spain · est. 1889 · Private
Illustration · Barcelona
La Salle Bonanova is a large Barcelona school of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district, at the foot of Collserola. Work on the college began in 1889 and the building opened in 1892, and the school has never moved since: today it holds almost 2000 pupils from the age of three up to the baccalaureate and around 150 teachers across several buildings on one site. The stages run right through - Infantil, Primària, ESO - and the upper stage splits into three routes: the national baccalaureate, the IB Diploma and the Batxibac, a dual Spanish-French certificate. All three sit in the Sant Jordi building, put up in 1935 as the free school. Beyond lessons the school runs institutions of its own: the Langcentre and a language school (intensive English since 1970), a music school whose elementary grade is recognised by the Catalan Department of Education, a dance school and a chess school. The La Salle Bonanova sports club has since 1983 run six disciplines - basketball, football, roller hockey, handball, volleyball and rhythmic gymnastics - with around 800 athletes and 70 coaches. The main thing a parent needs to know: the IB Diploma is one of three upper-stage routes, not the programme of the whole school, and lessons are in Catalan, while some non-language subjects at every stage are taught in Spanish and some in English by the CLIL (AICLE) method, from kindergarten up to the baccalaureate; in the international strand all textbooks are in English.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
Catalan, Spanish, English
Languages taught
French, German, Chinese
Admissions For Infantil, Primària and ESO the school admits through the common Catalan pre-registration: for the 2026-2027 school year it ran from 4 to 18 March 2026 for Infantil and Primària and from 6 to 18 March for ESO, with enrolment from 22 to 30 June 2026. The baccalaureate has its own procedure in six steps: getting to know the dossier of the three strands (national baccalaureate, Batxibac and the IB Diploma), the financial information, enrolment documents sent to admissions@bonanova.lasalle.cat from 3 December 2025, an orientation test on 2 July 2026 at 9:00, which the school stresses is in no way selective, the choice of strand in the first half of April and, by 15 July 2026, the 4th-year ESO grades and the certificate of completion of secondary school. The school takes foreigners: pupils who studied abroad submit the documents for recognition (homologation) of their studies, and enrolment is valid on condition that recognition is granted.
Stages and year groups Grades I3 - Batxillerat, from age 3. The second cycle of Infantil is P3, P4 and P5, from three to five years of age, in a separate building of 2005. Then come Primària, ESO and the upper stage, where a pupil chooses the national baccalaureate, the IB Diploma or the Batxibac. The school reveals its timetable only inside collapsible blocks on the stage pages, and those cannot be read from the page source.
Address Passeig de la Bonanova, 8
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeschool 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
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local 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.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: A single site at the foot of Collserola with several buildings of different periods: the main building of 1892 with an 1896 planisphere in its entrance hall and a chapel of 1901, the Montserrat building of 1923, the Sant Jordi building of 1935 holding the upper stage, the La Salle building of 1950 with the theatre, the large 400-seat canteen, laboratories and two floors of classrooms, and the Infantil building of 2005. Sport: a football pitch with artificial turf (2014), a sports hall, a fronton, the 1972 multi-sports hall and covered basketball and hockey courts (2000). The library occupies the former typing room of 1914, which also houses museums of minerals and zoology and a herbarium. Since 2014 the school has been rebuilding rooms into «creative spaces»: an imaginary world, a scientific world, language, mathematics and robotics laboratories and an agora.
Clubs and activities (12): Basketball · Football · Roller hockey · Handball · Volleyball · Rhythmic gymnastics · Music school · Dance school · Chess school · Language school · Theatre · Morning reception and after-school care
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
Summer programme away from campus: Summer Camp Catalonia is a week of English immersion with accommodation and full board at the Alberg de La Salle in La Seu d'Urgell, in the Pyrenees, from 6 to 12 July 2026, for primary years 3-6, with the school's language teachers; 655 euros including travel, accommodation, meals, activities and insurance. There is also a Summer Camp in England - two weeks of English in July, living in the residence of an English boarding school together with peers of other nationalities.
The school has several summer programmes. "Juliol Diferent" runs at the school itself on Passeig de la Bonanova 8 from 22 June to 31 July 2026, in six themed weeks, full day, for children from Infantil (I3-I5) to the end of primary: pool, games, sport, workshops, inflatables, activities in English and an outing once a week. Week 0 costs 150 euros with lunch or 128 without, the other weeks 181.30 euros with lunch or 153.50 without, with discounts for siblings and for all weeks. Registration closes on 21 May 2026.
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 states «almost 150 teachers and specialists in continuous training», and separately lists language and Langcentre teachers, music and dance teachers, around 70 sports club coaches, the administrative and service staff and the canteen monitors. It gives no named qualifications, no pupil-teacher ratio and no class sizes.
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
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The SOP psycho-pedagogical guidance service traces its origin to the applied psychology laboratory opened at the school in 1958, and supports pupils, teachers and families.
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%)82 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median61 "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