← Back to the rankingLiceo Scientifico Statale Niccolò Copernico
Pavia, Italy · est. 1980 · State
Illustration · Pavia
Liceo Copernico is a state scientific liceo in central Pavia. It opened in 1980 as a branch of what was then the only scientific liceo in the city and later became independent. It has 1259 students in 56 classes; about a third come from Pavia itself, the rest from nearby towns. There are three tracks: the standard scientific liceo, the scientific liceo with a biomedical focus Ippocrate, and the scientific liceo with the Cambridge IGCSE course; both special tracks have run since 2018-2019. In all tracks an extra hour of physics is added in years 1-2 (Power project) and an extra hour of Italian in year 5. Lessons are in Italian. In the Cambridge sections some subjects follow Cambridge syllabuses in English, together with native speakers, and students sit IGCSE exams; since 2020-2021 there have been two such sections. The liceo works with the University of Pavia and city hospitals and runs English-language lessons with Massachusetts Institute of Technology students through Global Teaching Labs.
Key facts
Programmes
Cambridge · IGCSE · National programme
Languages of instruction
Italian, English
Class size
an average of 22 students per class
About the fees It is a state school and tuition is free. The school tells families how to pay the voluntary contribution (contributo volontario) in September. The parents' association An.GE.LI.CO asks for 20 € a year.
Admissions Year 1 enrolment is through the national online procedure (Iscrizioni on-line) and is completed in summer: the family fills in an online form where it may name up to two classmates (honoured if mutual) and sends the lower secondary leaving certificate by the end of July; the section is announced by email by 31 July. The Cambridge course is recommended for students with good basic English; places are limited, and if applications exceed places the admission criteria approved by the school council apply. Just under 8% of students are foreign nationals, almost all raised in Italy; Italian as a second language courses are run for those who need them. The liceo hosts foreign exchange students with individual study plans.
Stages and year groups Grades 1-5 scuola secondaria di secondo grado. Five-year liceo scientifico on the Italian curriculum ending with the esame di Stato. Tracks: standard scientific liceo, scientific liceo with a biomedical focus Ippocrate (two-year foundation stage and three-year specialised stage with biology with a biomedical focus) and scientific liceo with the Cambridge IGCSE course (two sections). The Cambridge course runs from year 1 to year 4: English as a Second Language in years 1-3 with the exam at the end of year 3, Geography in years 1-2 with the exam at the end of year 2, Global Perspectives with the exam at the end of year 4, Mathematics in years 3-4 with the exam at the end of year 4 (introductory modules without an exam in years 1-2). The PTOF timetable also names Biology. On top of the standard timetable, two extra hours of English a week are taught by native speakers, and the other Cambridge subjects are co-taught by a school teacher and a native speaker; the Cambridge section week is 30 hours in years 1-2 and 32 hours in years 3-5. IGCSE exams are taken at school in the May-June and October-November sessions, at Core or Extended level by choice. The brochure aims at four IGCSE exams and, if possible, one A Level exam.
Address Via Giuseppe Verdi 23-25, 27100 Pavia (PV)
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE · authorised programmeThe Cambridge register names the school as its centre; it teaches Cambridge IGCSE. Two Cambridge sections of the science liceo take IGCSE English as a Second Language, Geography, Global Perspectives and Mathematics in years 1-4, with two extra hours of English with native speakers.
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.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results In the INVALSI English tests in year 5 the liceo is consistently above the average for Italian licei: in 2024-2025 reading 232.9 and listening 245.0 against 220.3 and 229.1. According to the school, students in the Cambridge sections do well in IGCSE exams; in 2022-2025 about 150 students gained language certificates.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Clubs and activities: School Sports Centre · Athletics · Volleyball · Basketball · Badminton · Five-a-Side Football · Cross-Country Running · Swimming · Il Tafano (school newspaper) · Radio Cope (school radio) · CopeLab (science lab for younger pupils)
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
Cambridge subjects are taught by native speakers or by Italian teachers with good English who have trained in CLIL and on Cambridge courses; some lessons are co-taught by the subject teacher and a native speaker. A native English speaker visits all classes at certain times of the year. The school does not publish its number of 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 roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
There is a counselling service (sportello d'ascolto) for students, families and staff. The site has a section on bullying and cyberbullying under laws 71/2017 and 70/2024, a protocol on medicines at school and safety rules: at least two evacuation drills a year, trained staff and supervision duties.
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 data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 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