← Back to homeSEK International School Alborán
El Ejido, Spain · Private
Illustration · El Ejido
SEK-Alborán is a private international school in the Almerimar development in El Ejido, on the Almería coast, teaching every stage from four months to eighteen years: Escuela Infantil - Nursery, Infantil y Primaria, Secundaria and Bachillerato. The school belongs to the SEK Education Group and runs all three International Baccalaureate programmes - the primary from three to twelve, the middle years from twelve to sixteen and the Diploma from sixteen to eighteen; it calls itself the only school in the province to run them as a full continuum. Teaching runs with full immersion in English and bilingually, English with Spanish. The school publishes its Diploma results: in 2024 the average score of its 16 candidates was 34.65, more than four points above the world average, and seven scored above 40. The campus is large - 28000 square metres, with a heated swimming pool, a covered pavilion, laboratories and five libraries. Some of the figures the school puts on its home page belong to the whole group: more than seven thousand students and more than eighty nationalities.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · PYP, MYP, DP
Admits from
4 months · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English, Spanish
Admissions The school admits foreigners: the group's admission policy, to which the school links from its own admission page, says that students of all nationalities and religions are welcome, and next to it stands a table matching the Spanish, British and American school systems. A pupil from another system normally enters the year group that matches the date of birth; if that is not possible, they may be considered for the year below, especially when the pupil's native language is not Spanish. Admission runs in four steps: a request for information, a visit to the school (optional, but the school recommends it), an interview and an admission assessment through the MY SEK Admissions platform - for those who cannot come, the interview is held online - and the decision of the admissions committee. Required are the identity documents of the parents and the child, the birth certificate and reports for the previous and current year. The school offers places throughout the year, but their number is limited; after a place is offered the fee must be paid within seven calendar days, or the place is lost. A place may be refused for incomplete or false documents, for vaccination status, or for past difficulties in study or behaviour the school cannot support; additional support for a pupil is paid for by the family.
Stages and year groups Grades from 4 months to 18 years. The school teaches every stage: Escuela Infantil - Nursery, Infantil y Primaria, Secundaria and Bachillerato, from four months to eighteen years. International Baccalaureate programmes: PEP from three to twelve, PAI from twelve to sixteen, the Diploma from sixteen to eighteen.
Address Urb. Almerimar, C/ Barlovento, 143, El Ejido, 04711 Almería
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · accreditationIB · PYP, MYP, DP · authorised programmeSEK · 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
NEASCNew England Association of Schools and Colleges
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
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 →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 →SEKschool network
A Spanish organisation, founded in 1892; the site calls it Institución Internacional SEK, and signs the network of schools and universities "SEK-IES", International Education Systems. The numbers diverge: the home page names 26 schools, 2 universities, 17 countries and more than 25,000 pupils, while the "Red educativa internacional" page lists the same 26 schools - 14 "Colegios SEK" and 12 "Colegios IES" - and three universities. The Portuguese school stands among the "Colegios IES"; the history page puts its purchase in 2022. Whether the organisation owns the schools or manages them is not said. Not to be confused with SEK Education Group: that one has its own site, sek.es, and Portugal is not in its list of countries.
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
34.65 (world average 30.88)
Exam results IB Diploma 2024: an average score of 34.65 out of 45 across 16 candidates, more than four points above the world average, with seven scoring above 40 points. On its home page the school also reports a 100 per cent pass rate in the IB Diploma in 2023 and 100 per cent of candidates entered and passing the Spanish university entrance examination PEvAU the same year.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Makerspace
Campus: A campus of 28000 square metres in Almerimar. Sport: multi-sport courts, an athletics area, a covered pavilion, a heated swimming pool, a taekwondo room. Study: biology, physics and chemistry laboratories, a computer room, a technology and robotics laboratory, music rooms, art rooms, a dance studio, a theatre area and the Multilearning Maker Space with a radio studio, a video recording and editing area, a 3D printer and robotics tables. There are five libraries - Infantil, Primaria, one for parents, a humanities library and the main library - with 10000 titles and 25000 copies in all. Digital whiteboards in every classroom, Wi-Fi across the campus, lockers with charging points.
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
Summer programme away from campus:
The school's menu includes summer courses, which lead to the SEK group's summer programmes portal, backed by more than 65 years of summer courses: trips, residential camps and day camps in Spain, and abroad SEK-Dublin in Ireland, SEK-Les Alpes in France and the schooner Goleta Cervantes Saavedra on Formentera. Whether any camp runs in Almerimar itself, and the dates, ages and prices, the school does not say.
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 roomnot stated on the website
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The school has a guidance department: prevention, assessment and intervention in the learning process, career guidance in secondary and upper school, a parents' school once a term and advice on admission to universities abroad. The school names neither the department's staff, nor a medical room, nor security, nor a 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%)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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 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.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country