← Back to homeNew Castelar College International School
San Pedro del Pinatar, Spain · Private
Illustration · San Pedro del Pinatar
New Castelar College is a private international school in San Pedro del Pinatar on the Murcia coast, and the main thing about it is a double exit: a pupil leaves with the Spanish Bachillerato and with an American High School Diploma, which the school is entitled to issue thanks to its MSA accreditation. The course is built from two: the AERO framework run by the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department, and the Spanish programme approved by the ministry of education. The school calls its languages equal and splits the day in half: half the subjects of the international course are taught by native English speakers and half by Spanish teachers, and from the third year of primary school everyone takes a third language, German. The stages start from nought: the first cycle of pre-school education from nought to three, the second from three to six, then primary, secondary and two years of Bachillerato in two pathways, sciences and social sciences. Among the unusual things: the school calls itself the first in Spain to teach a separate subject called "Happiness and Personal Development" - positive psychology, in effect - keeps separate subjects in "Speaking and Communication Skills" and "Business Studies", and sends senior pupils on real internships with companies in their chosen field, supervised by its own coordinator. The learning environment is put together seriously: a swimming pool, a laboratory, a technology room, a computer room entirely on Macs under an agreement with Apple, an assembly hall, a library, semi-covered and open-air sports courts, a separate playground for the youngest, and a dining room with its own kitchen and menus drawn up by nutritionists. There is a school clinic with a nurse and a defibrillator, and a psycho-pedagogical guidance office staffed by specialists in pedagogy, psychology, neuropsychology and hearing and language. School buses run three routes - La Manga, Cartagena and Torrevieja. Foreign pupils are taken through an immersion programme in Spanish and English, and elite athletes have their timetables adapted. The school does not publish its fees.
Key facts
Programmes
American programme · National programme
Admits from
a few months · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
Spanish, English
Admissions Admission begins with an interview with the parents or legal guardians - the school calls it an essential part of the process. From the primary stage upwards a placement test may be added, and it is set for those coming from a school unlike this one. The school states that it reserves the right to request information from the pupil's previous school and that it takes the admission decision after the final interview and test. The school does take foreign pupils: it brings pupils from other countries in through an immersion programme in Spanish and English, and among the nationalities of its pupils it names Americans, English, Belgians, Chinese, Russians, Swedes and Swiss. The school names no separate admission requirements for foreign pupils, such as homologation of documents or knowledge of Spanish.
Stages and year groups Grades first cycle of pre-school education from age 0 - Bachillerato, up to age 18. The stages run right through: the first cycle of pre-school education from nought to three, the second from three to six, primary school, compulsory secondary - four years from twelve to sixteen - and the Bachillerato, two years in two pathways, sciences and social sciences. Extracurricular activities are timetabled differently by stage: from 12:50 to 13:50 in primary, from 13:50 to 14:50 in pre-school and from 16:00 to 16:50 in secondary. Those who do not take them spend that time in the library under teachers' supervision. The morning classroom opens at 7:45.
Address Calle Teruel 47, 30740 San Pedro del Pinatar, Murcia
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 →American programme
The American school programme, with the High School Diploma at the end. It usually comes together with AP courses, which the College Board stands behind, and with an American accreditation - MSA, NEASC or Cognia.
What this means for this school. The diploma is written out by the school itself: the American programme has no common leaving exam, and the content of the senior years is set by the school. Outside checking therefore rests on two things here - the accreditation of the school, and the AP exams if the school runs them.
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 pool
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Playground
Campus: Spacious, bright classrooms with projectors and interactive whiteboards, a computer room entirely on Mac computers under the school's agreement with Apple, a laboratory, a technology room for building and experiments, an assembly hall-auditorium, a library, its own swimming pool, semi-covered and open-air sports courts and pitches, open-air reading areas, play areas and a separate playground for the youngest. The dining room is the school's own, with its own kitchen and menus drawn up by nutritionists, with separate attention to allergies and intolerances and with supervisors on duty; parents are told each day through the ESEMTIA platform what the menu was and how much their child ate. There is a cafeteria on the ground floor. School buses run three routes - La Manga, Cartagena and Torrevieja - with supervisors on board. The morning classroom opens at 7:45. The school also reports that it has installed a 60-kilowatt solar array.
Clubs and activities (20): Lego, robotics, video game programming and 3D design · Kitsune mathematics · Debating and public speaking club · Aloha mathematics · Piano · Theatre · Cambridge First Certificate preparation · Cambridge CAE preparation · Combined events · French · German · Football · Roller skating · Chess · Volleyball · Basketball · Badminton · Tennis · Self-defence · Dance and Zumba
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
Its own summer school, Summer Time, from 30 June to 28 August, run by the same teaching team that teaches during the year. The programme includes English and Spanish classes, an ICT class on Macs, sailing and kayaking, golf and cricket, pool games, art workshops, a Mini Chefs cookery workshop and sport; the services running are the morning classroom, the afternoon classroom and the dining room. The school publishes no prices.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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 policynot stated on the website
✓Staff training
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
A school clinic of its own: a paediatric nursing service led by the nurse Teresa Carrillo, covering both one-off emergencies and ongoing care - from controlling food allergies in the dining room to monitoring chronic conditions such as diabetes; the school has a defibrillator, part of the team is trained to use it, and the school calls itself a cardioprotected space. The psycho-pedagogical guidance office is staffed by specialists in pedagogy, psychology, neuropsychology and hearing and language: it advises pupils, parents and teachers, helps a newcomer settle into their class and detects learning difficulties. The school names neither CCTV, nor security staff, nor an access control system, nor a separate child protection policy.
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 data70 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data90 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 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.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country