← Back to homeLiceo Sorolla International School
Pozuelo de Alarcon, Spain · Private
Illustration · Pozuelo de Alarcon
Liceo Sorolla is a private international school in Pozuelo de Alarcón near Madrid, part of the Cognita group, taking children from the age of 1 to 18. The school says it has been working for more than fifty years and that the founding families still hold the project. It calls its education bilingual and its language project trilingual: Spanish, English and French; the language department has 28 teachers, 19 of them native speakers. It became an IB World School in 2016 and uses the IB approach at every stage: the PYP in primary, the MYP in secondary and the IB Diploma at the top, alongside the national bachillerato. Pupils of more than 25 nationalities study at the school; every year it receives about 50 pupils from international schools in other countries and sends about 150 of its own to study abroad, in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. The school is proud of its results: in the EvAU university entrance exams it has for years been among the best of the 205 schools attached to the Complutense University of Madrid. The school has its own support centre, Yume, with a clinical psychologist, a speech therapist and a dyslexia specialist, two full-time nurses and a large sports campus with an Olympic pool. It is an examination centre for Cambridge and the Institut Français and a member of the UNESCO schools network and Eco-Escuelas.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $5 118–10 619 a year
4 530–9 400 EUR
Programmes
IB · PYP, MYP, DP
Admits from
1 year · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
Spanish, English
About the fees The school publishes its 2026/27 fees itself, for the full year, as indicative standard amounts: nursery for children aged 1 and 2 - 4530 euros, aged 3 and 4 - 5840 euros, aged 5 - 5970 euros; primary - 6310 euros in years 1-2, 6350 euros in years 3-4 and 6400 euros in years 5-6; ESO - 6620 euros in years 1-2 and 6870 euros in years 3-4; bachillerato - 7250 euros; IB Diploma - 9400 euros plus 895 euros in fees. The final amount depends on additional services. The third child and further children get a 30 per cent discount on tuition. Nursery vouchers and the Community of Madrid nursery grant are accepted. The Ángel Llorente scholarship covers 100 per cent of the cost of the IB Diploma.
Admissions Admission is open all year. The school holds no entrance tests: the family fills in an application, the admissions office calls and arranges a visit, an interview with the child takes place during the visit, and the school then says whether the child is accepted and what is needed for enrolment. Availability of places depends on the year group. Siblings of pupils have priority. Children of more than 25 nationalities study at the school, and every year it receives about 50 pupils from international schools in other countries. The Ángel Llorente scholarship for the IB Diploma requires an average mark of at least 8 and registered residence in Pozuelo de Alarcón, and new pupils must pass the school's selection.
Stages and year groups Grades Infantil (age 1) - 2º Bachillerato. Stages: nursery from age 1 to 6, primary from 6 to 12, secondary ESO from 12 to 16 and the bachillerato from 16 to 18. In the bachillerato there are two routes: the national bachillerato with preparation for the EvAU and the IB Diploma Programme, which gives a double qualification - the Spanish bachillerato together with the IB Diploma; the Diploma Programme currently has two groups. Primary runs the PYP and secondary the MYP. Primary classrooms are themed, and programming and robotics are added from year 5. Every pupil from primary to the bachillerato has a personal development plan with a tutor.
Address Avda. Bularas 4, 28224 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP, MYP, DP · authorised programmeCognita · 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
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: PYP (ages 3-12), MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). PYP is the primary stage, ages 3 to 12. It is not a set of subjects but a frame for the whole school: learning is built around lines of inquiry, and there are no exams at the end. MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. 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 →Cognitaschool network
A group of schools launched in 2004; the legal entity in the footer of the site is Cognita Holdings Limited. The site names 90 schools in 21 countries, 14 curricula and more than 22,000 staff, and the numbers agree on all the pages read. The section on a school joining the group speaks of working with the owners of schools and of integrating the school, but does not say outright whether the school passes into ownership; the word "franchise" does not appear on the site. The majority owner of Cognita itself is named as Jacobs Holding AG.
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
Average IB score
31 (world average 30.88)
Exam results IB Diploma for 2024/25: 93 per cent passed, average score 31 out of 45, which the school equates to 8.6 out of 10. In 2023/24 the average score was 35.05. PAU final exams 2025/26: 100 per cent passed, bachillerato average 8.5, exam average 8.34, university entrance mark 8.44. Over 15 years the school has 12 times been in the top thirty for the EvAU among the 205 Complutense schools, and 36 of its leavers have been among the hundred best EvAU results in the Community of Madrid.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Playground · Makerspace
Campus: A 15000 square metre campus in Pozuelo de Alarcón: classrooms, sports grounds and a lot of greenery. Primary classrooms are themed; there are outdoor classrooms and a learning vegetable garden, an art workshop, laboratories and a makerspace, psychomotor and dance rooms. For sport: an indoor Olympic swimming pool, a sports hall, a 7-a-side football pitch, four basketball and two volleyball outdoor courts. The school's own kitchen cooks a Mediterranean menu, and the canteen is recognised as suitable for children with coeliac disease. School buses run to Pozuelo, Majadahonda, Aravaca, Las Rozas, Moncloa, Puerta de Hierro, Puerta de Toledo and Aluche. Over the next three years the school promises more than 20 works on 1600 square metres: a new arts centre, new science laboratories and renovated playgrounds.
Clubs and activities: Choir · School bands · Drama club · Writing, reading and debating club · Entrepreneurs' club · Theatre and musical theatre · Ballet · Spanish dance · Flamenco · Breakdancing · Watercolour, illustration, sculpture · Piano, violin, guitar, cello · Robotics · 3D programming · Chess · Master Chef (cooking) · Football · Basketball · Volleyball · Swimming · Roller skating · Rhythmic gymnastics · Karate · English and French exam preparation
Summer programme away from campus: A residential camp at La Devesa in Bembibre (León) from 1 to 10 July: water sports, excursions, multi-adventure.. The school runs no camp of its own on campus
The school runs holiday camps in summer and at Easter. The summer camp for children from the second year of nursery to year 3 runs from 22 June to 24 July from 9:30 to 16:00, with extended hours from 8:00 to 17:00: swimming, robotics, music and dance, on the school grounds. The technology camp for pupils from year 1 to the third year of ESO runs from 22 June to 17 July, Monday to Friday from 8:50 to 15:00: robotics, programming, artificial intelligence. From 1 to 10 July there is a residential camp in Bembibre (León) for pupils from year 1 to the third year of ESO.
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 sizenot stated
What the listings show: Language department: 28 teachers, 19 of them native speakers.
The school does not publish the total number of teachers. The language department has 28 teachers, 19 of them native speakers of various nationalities, and there are bilingual Spanish teachers with international experience. Teachers train continuously: educational project design, active methodologies, pedagogical leadership, debate, neuroscience applied to learning, emotional intelligence; they go on research trips and exchanges to schools abroad. The school works with the psychiatry department of the Complutense University of Madrid on research into neuroscience in the classroom.
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 policynot stated on the website
Two nurses work at the school full time every day; there is civil liability and accident insurance from the age of 2, and in serious cases a child is taken to the La Zarzuela clinic in Aravaca. The school has its own support centre, Yume: clinical psychology, speech therapy, dyslexia; the specialists work together with teachers and tutors. As a Cognita school it names common child protection rules: safety of the premises, strict staff selection, child safeguarding policies, procedures and training, and regular reviews. The school reports a plan to strengthen the security and accessibility of the campus.
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%)95 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 data85 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