← Back to homePrime School Sintra
Sintra, Portugal · est. 2003 · Private
Illustration · Sintra
The Sintra campus is one of the three sites of Prime School International, an independent Portuguese school founded in 2003 by Edite Reina and Miguel Reina which belongs to no international group. It stands in Portela de Sintra at Rua Mestre Neves 20. This is the bilingual site and the support site: lessons run half the time in English and half in Portuguese from Reception onwards, and the school names this campus its site for children with special educational needs - autism spectrum conditions, attention deficit, dyslexia, speech and language needs. The stages run from kindergarten at three to the 3rd Cycle, to fourteen, after which a pupil moves to the Lisbon or Estoril campus where the Cambridge route reaches Year 13, or to the Prime Technical Institute for BTEC and Higher National Diploma programmes. The curriculum is Cambridge: Early Years, Primary, Lower Secondary with the Checkpoint assessment in Year 9. Among the school's pupils there are more than seventy nationalities, and it addresses among others families moving to Portugal. The school is recognised by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, registered as a Cambridge school, holds ISO 9001 certification and Erasmus+ accreditation. The annual fee at the Sintra campus runs from 11285 euros in the kindergarten to 17480 in Year 9 and is common to the three campuses; catering at 1800 euros a year and insurance at 250 euros are mandatory on top, an application costs 850 euros, the one-off capital levy is 3800 euros per family and transport runs from 1900 to 3504 euros a year. Boarding is kept only in Lisbon, for pupils from Year 9 to Year 13, aged thirteen to eighteen.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $13 110–20 307 a year
11 285–17 480 EUR
Programmes
Cambridge · Early Years, IGCSE, A-Level · Pearson Edexcel · BTEC
Admits from
3 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English, Portuguese
About the fees The annual fee is common to the three campuses and is named by year group: kindergarten 11285 euros, Year 1 12590, Year 2 14275, Year 3 14805, Year 4 14880, Year 5 15145, Year 6 15465, Year 7 15955, Year 8 17405, Year 9 17480. The Sintra campus goes up to Year 9, so its range ends at 17480 euros; further along the same schedule come Year 10 18550, Year 11 20910, Year 12 21945 and Year 13 22160 at the Lisbon and Estoril campuses. Catering with a daily lunch costs 1800 euros a year, pupil insurance 250 euros, and transport from 1900 to 3504 euros a year depending on the route. Payment of the year in advance by 31 August earns a 3 per cent discount, and siblings are given 15 per cent for a second child, 25 for a third and 40 for a fourth.
Admissions The school takes children from the age of three and says that among its pupils there are more than seventy nationalities, and that it addresses families moving to Portugal and those following the Cambridge route. An application costs 850 euros and is counted per application. The Sintra campus is a site for pupils with special educational needs: the school says outright that it supports children with autism spectrum conditions, attention deficit, dyslexia, speech and language needs and other additional requirements, and teaches bilingually, half the time in English and half in Portuguese, from Reception onwards. The school names no requirements as to nationality, residence or knowledge of Portuguese.
Stages and year groups Grades kindergarten from age 3, Years 1-9, that is from Reception to the 3rd Cycle (to age 14). The Sintra campus runs bilingual teaching from kindergarten to the 3rd Cycle: the school itself names this route as the stages from Jardim de Infancia to 3.o Ciclo and sets the campus age range at three to fourteen. After that a pupil moves to the Lisbon or Estoril campus, where the Cambridge route runs to Year 13, or to the Prime Technical Institute for BTEC and Higher National Diploma programmes. The curriculum is Cambridge: Cambridge Early Years, Primary, Lower Secondary with the Checkpoint assessment in Year 9, then IGCSE and AS with A-Levels at the other campuses.
Address Rua Mestre Neves 20, Portela, 2710-422 Sintra
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Early Years, IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmePearson · authorised programmeThe group names BTEC and Higher National Diploma qualifications, delivered through its own Prime Technical Institute. The school is not in the official Pearson registry: the Portuguese list was swept in full on 27.09.2026 and agreed with the registry's own counter. The record therefore stands on the school's own word and does not count towards the score.
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: Early Years (ages 3-6), IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). Early Years is the nursery stage, ages 3 to 6. There are no exams at the end: the stage describes what the youngest children are taught and how, and it follows the Cambridge frame rather than a national nursery programme. IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →PearsonPearson Edexcel, a British exam board
It gives a school approved centre status: that means Pearson exams can be sat in the school itself. What is checked is the premises, the equipment, the secure storage of papers and the presence of trained invigilators.
What this status would mean. The school can run Pearson exams on its own premises. The status says nothing about teaching, about results or about the school itself: any school able to run an exam securely holds it. The school is not in the organisation's register: the status comes from the school's own words. Which Pearson qualifications this school is approved for is not stated here.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →BTEC
A British vocational qualification from Pearson: not an academic course with an exam at the end, but a programme of practical assignments in a particular trade, from engineering and business to art and sport.
What this means for this school. Teaching and assessment work differently from A-level: instead of written exams there is a run of practical assignments marked by the school, while Pearson checks the school itself and samples the work. British universities do accept BTEC, but not all of them and not for every course: level 3 carries the same UCAS points as A-level, and that is what a family aiming at a particular university should look at. For a child who needs the classic academic route, BTEC is not a replacement for A-level but a different path.
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
The school does not describe its premises on its website.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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%)85 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 data55 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 "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