← Back to homePrivate Volksschule MERIDIAN Grinzing
Vienna, Austria · est. 2020 · Private
Illustration · Vienna
Private Volksschule MERIDIAN Grinzing is a private non-denominational full-day primary school (Volksschule, grades 1-4) in Grinzing, Vienna's 19th district. It was founded in 2020 by the MERIDIAN education centre, which Konstantin Dshajani opened in 2007; it received Öffentlichkeitsrecht in the 2021-2022 school year. Lessons follow the Austrian Volksschule curriculum in German, while English is built into lessons and after-school care from the first day; since the 2023-2024 school year the school has added the Cambridge Primary Curriculum and calls itself the first certified Cambridge International School in Vienna. Classes have no more than 20 children and at least two teachers, with a MINT focus (maths, computing, natural sciences, technology), a daily garden hour and swimming in all four grades. The school prepares children for German-language and English-language secondary schools; a bilingual kindergarten for ages 3-6 and its own secondary school are planned.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $13 014 a year
1 152 EUR a month
The year is counted as ten payments: the school does not say how many payments it takes.
Programmes
Cambridge · Primary · National programme
Languages of instruction
German, English
Languages taught
Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Spanish, French, Chinese, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian
Class size
no more than 20 pupils
Registration fee
≈ $282
250 EUR
About the fees Fees for 2026-2027: 1152 euros a month (12 payments a year), or 6705 euros per semester, or 13341 euros if the year is paid in advance. A compulsory meal fee of 251 euros a month (10 times a year) is charged separately. Early and late supervision are included. The second child gets a 10 percent discount, each further child 5 percent. The school receives no subsidies from the state or the City of Vienna. The preschool course for children aged 5-6 costs 525 euros per semester.
Admissions The school writes: «Es sind Schülerinnen und Schüler aller Konfessionen und Nationalitäten willkommen» (students of all faiths and nationalities are welcome). There is one important condition: the child must already speak German - English can be learned at school, «neben der deutschen Sprache (die sie schon beherrschen müssen)» (alongside German, which they must already master), even if their mother tongue is neither German nor English. Steps: a free, non-binding pre-registration on the website, an information meeting, then, on the head's invitation, payment of the processing fee and an enrolment interview. Children can opt out of religion lessons without giving reasons.
Stages and year groups Grades 1.-4. Schulstufe. Volksschule from grade 1 to 4 (Schulstufe), full day: compulsory programme Monday to Thursday 08:30-16:20, Friday 08:30-13:40, supervision from 08:00 to 17:00. The Austrian Volksschule curriculum is covered in full, and within the full-day programme some subjects follow the Cambridge Primary Curriculum: the school writes that it is «die erste und einzige zertifizierte Cambridge International School in Österreich» (the first and only certified Cambridge International School in Austria). Students of an officially recognised Volksschule with good grades move to a Gymnasium (AHS) without an entrance exam. Separately, a bilingual preschool course runs once a week for children aged 5-6.
Address Himmelstraße 11, 1190 Wien
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Primary · authorised programmeThe Cambridge register names the school as a Cambridge centre (it is recorded there as Private Primary School Meridian). It is a primary school for years 1 to 4: the Austrian Volksschule curriculum with Cambridge Primary alongside it.
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: 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.
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 hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Art studio · Playground · Makerspace
Campus: The school is in Grinzing, in the historic Pöltinger Hof, a former hunting lodge of Empress Maria Theresa (1730) renovated for school use. The building has 8 classrooms equipped for full-day school, a library with a reading corner, a movement room, a multi-purpose room with a creative workshop, a festival hall with a stage, a dining room with a warming kitchen and 2 staff rooms. It is barrier-free with a lift and air conditioning, and classrooms have digital boards. There is a fenced playground and a school shuttle from Wien Mitte to Grinzing in the morning and back after lessons.
Clubs and activities: Chinesisch · Russisch · Spanisch · Französisch · Erstsprachenunterricht Russisch · Erstsprachenunterricht Ukrainisch · Erstsprachenunterricht Arabisch · Erstsprachenunterricht Spanisch · Erstsprachenunterricht Bosnisch/Serbisch/Kroatisch
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: Head teacher Sonja Erdödy: primary teaching diploma from the Pädagogische Akademie des Bundes in der Steiermark and a Montessori diploma from the Association Montessori Internationale.
Each class has at least two teachers and no more than 20 children; teachers who are native speakers of German and of English are responsible for the children.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
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 data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 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 "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