← Back to homeSt. Peter's International School
Palmela, Portugal · est. 1993 · Private
Illustration · Palmela
The school opened in 1993 and has grown to more than 1500 students of more than 40 nationalities; it takes children from 4 months to 18 years. The campus covers 37000 square metres in Palmela, half an hour from Lisbon, and includes a boarding house for students aged 14 to 18: full boarding through the week and weekends and flexible boarding on weekdays or selected days, with house parents living alongside the students and supervision round the clock. Teaching is bilingual: the school calls it full bilingual immersion from nursery to secondary, after which a family chooses a pathway, the Portuguese one on the national curriculum or the international one on Cambridge with IGCSE and the IB Diploma. The school keeps its pages for parents in both English and Portuguese, and the daily timetable and the admissions rules are written in both languages, so the language of lessons is English and Portuguese together. The school promises more than eighty extracurricular activities but gives none of their names on its own pages: the list is held on a separate portal. The school belongs to the Inspired Education group.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · DP · Cambridge · IGCSE
Admits from
4 months · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English, Portuguese
Admissions The school says itself that 80% of its students are Portuguese and 20% are international learners. It requires no nationality and no residence permit. Admission runs in five steps: an enquiry form, a visit to the school, a personalised meeting between the family and a member of the leadership team, an English language evaluation for those joining the international pathway, and enrolment. Fluency in English is not required for the Portuguese curriculum; the international pathway requires an English examination of speaking, reading and writing. Applications are accepted throughout the school year and official registration runs from 15 April to 15 June. Boarding takes students aged 14 to 18, from both the Portuguese and the international pathways.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery and preschool from 4 months to 5 years, primary and secondary on the Portuguese curriculum, an international pathway with Cambridge, IGCSE in the upper years and the IB Diploma. The school is open from 8:00 to 19:00, with an extension after 18:00 at extra cost. Nursery lessons run from 9:00 to 16:00, kindergarten and above from 8:30 to 16:00. From Grade 2 there are on average 25 students in a class.
Address Quinta dos Barreleiros CCI 3952, 2950-420 Palmela
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeCambridge · IGCSE · authorised programmeInspired · 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
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: DP (ages 16-19). 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 →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: IGCSE (ages 14-16). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Inspiredschool network
Inspired Education Group is a private school group founded in 2013. The group gives different figures on its own pages - 125 schools on some, "more than 100" on others - and we quote both: choosing for a group which of its own numbers is correct is not something we do. Its schools are in Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and some of them keep their own historic names, such as King's College in Madrid and Riga. The group's site is inspirededu.com.
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
Exam results IB Diploma 2026: 33% of students scored above 36 points, the best result was 42 points, and 48% earned a bilingual diploma. Portuguese national examinations 2024: first place in the country for the average mark in the Philosophy examination, 42% of students with a result of 92% or above in Mathematics A and 40% in Economics A.
Where leavers go: University of Oxford · Columbia University · Universita Bocconi · Universidade Nova de Lisboa · Instituto Superior Tecnico · London School of Economics and Political Science · University College London · HEC Paris
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: A 37000 square metre campus in Palmela, half an hour from Lisbon. Classrooms are fitted to each age group, equipped with technology and virtual reality; there are chemistry, physics and biology laboratories, robotics, a music room and an auditorium. Sport: two tennis courts, two astroturf pitches for football and rugby, a sports pavilion and a separate indoor PE and gymnastics room for the youngest. For the little ones there are outdoor play areas with play equipment and sleeping rooms in the nursery. The boarding house has twin and triple rooms with en-suite bathrooms, common rooms, study areas and kitchens, with access to the campus sports grounds and art spaces; meals are cooked on site every day.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
✓Students per teacher or class sizein the key facts above
From Grade 2 there are on average 25 students in a class.
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
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school keeps its child protection and safeguarding policy, its anti-bullying policy and its internal regulations as separate documents and publishes them in the policies section.
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%)84 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 data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 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 median70 "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