← Back to homeColegio Internacional Montessori Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, Spain · est. 2016 · Private
Illustration · Santiago de Compostela
Montessori Compostela is a private secular international school in Santiago de Compostela, in the buildings beside the church of Santa María la Real de Sar, which the city calls the Colegiata de Sar. The Galician government authorises it as a foreign teaching centre, the school says its quality is certified by a recognised American agency, and its leadership is accredited by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). Teaching began in September 2016 with two environments, Casa for three-to-six-year-olds and Taller 1 for six-to-nine-year-olds, and the school added an age every year until it reached four years of secondary school under the Montessori Adolescent Programme. There are now three stages: Infantil from 3 to 6, Primaria from 6 to 12 and Secundaria from 12 to 16; there is no upper stage with final exams. The school calls itself trilingual but does not list the languages; its site is in Galician (which opens first), Spanish and English, and it writes of its international character as a movement from the home language to the languages and cultures around it, so these three are given as the languages of instruction. Classes mix ages, children move freely around the room and there is no fixed common timetable; there are no written tests and no homework, and assessment is continuous, with written records. The day is short: in Infantil and Primaria from 8:40 to 13:40, while the secondary timetable depends on how the group organises itself. The school does not provide meals, families organise lunch themselves, there is no uniform but a dress code, and the school supplies most books and materials itself. It does not publish its fees: both the enrolment fee and the monthly fee are marked "please enquire".
Key facts
Admits from
3 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
Galician, Spanish, English
About the fees The school does not publish its fees: the annual enrolment fee and the monthly fee for the 2026/2027 school year are marked "please enquire". It publishes only family discounts on the monthly fee: 10 per cent for the second child, 20 for the third and a full scholarship for the fourth when studying at the same time.
Admissions Enrolment for the 2026-2027 school year is, the school says, open, and there are places available in Primaria. The school does not describe an admission procedure with steps, deadlines, an interview or a language check on its site: for questions it gives an email address and a telephone number, and of the enrolment fee and the monthly fee it writes "please enquire". It says nothing about conditions for children from other countries, although it calls itself international and is authorised in Galicia as a foreign teaching centre.
Stages and year groups Grades Infantil from age 3 - Secundaria, up to age 16. Three consecutive stages: Infantil is the second cycle of pre-school education, from three to six; Primaria runs from six to twelve; Secundaria is the Montessori Adolescent Programme, from twelve to sixteen, all four years of secondary school. Groups are mixed-age: in the pre-school environment children of three different ages live together. The school day in Infantil and Primaria runs from 8:40 to 13:40, Monday to Friday; at the secondary stage the timetable varies and depends on the group's self-organisation. There are no written tests, assessment is continuous, and the school sets no homework.
Address Calle de Sar s/n, Colegiata de Sar, 15702 Santiago de Compostela
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationschool 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
MSAMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
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 →Montessori
The pedagogy of Maria Montessori: a child chooses the activity, works at their own pace with special materials, and mixed-age groups are arranged so that older children teach the younger ones. It is used most often in the nursery and primary stages.
What this means for this school. The name Montessori belongs to nobody: any school may call itself a Montessori school, and there is no single body that checks this. There are associations that train teachers and recognise schools, but membership of them is voluntary, and our entry means exactly that the school describes itself this way. This pedagogy has no leaving certificate, so what to look at is what the school finishes with.
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 hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: The buildings beside the church of Santa María la Real de Sar in the Sar quarter - the Colegiata de Sar. More than 4000 square metres of open grounds and 900 square metres of classrooms on the ground and first floors, with classroom windows onto the cloister. There is no canteen of its own: the school does not provide meals, and arranging lunch is the families' business, with the school only helping them agree on a shared solution.
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: Leadership - AMI; teachers - university education and Montessori certification
The school's leadership, it says, is accredited by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), and all its teachers have a university education, work experience and recognised Montessori training; the school stresses that it works only with teachers trained to run a full Montessori environment. The school does not publish the number of teachers, the pupil-teacher ratio or a staff list by name, apart from three first names without positions.
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%)60 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 data60 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median74 "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.
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