# seeking an area near international schools



## LookingForABetterLife (Jul 24, 2016)

Hi,

I have just joined the forum after looking/following for several years on and off.
My wife, our 4 year old child and myself are seriously thinking of moving to Spain.

I have spent a lot of time looking for the right area to move to but I am still struggling to decide. I would really appreciate if anyone could give me some hints or advice on good locations and schools, considering the facts below:

Our number one priority is proximity to an affordable international school. Ideally with fees below 6000 euro per annum at primary school age.

Regarding location we would like to be near the coast, 10 minute drive would be ok, but 10 minute walk would be better
Somewhere that is not full of high rise buildings or overdeveloped and preferably walkable for day to day activities.
Our budget would be £150,000. Less would be nice.

We do not need to be near an airport and I can work remotely so local employment options are not a primary concern.

Thanks in advance.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

LookingForABetterLife said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have just joined the forum after looking/following for several years on and off.
> My wife, our 4 year old child and myself are seriously thinking of moving to Spain.
> ...


I don't have any recommendations as my daughter went to state school and in the Madrid area, so not near the coast. You could try looking here
Welcome to Nabss | Nabss
Council of British International Schools (COBIS)
Mediterranean Association of International Schools
However, at 4 years old the child could go to a state school, well it would be a pre primary class as school starts at 6


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## cay (Jan 8, 2015)

You may enjoy living in Albir next to Benidorm. I find Benidorm has most amenities including a hypermarket and the British International School in Albir/Alfaz del Pi is supposedly very nice. Our DS isn't old enough for normal school (just _infantil!_) as of yet so I couldn't give you a price.

However, I can give you my opinion that if you are planning on making a _permanent_ move to Spain, I'd advise putting your children in a State school so they grow up alongside their peers instead of just expat children.... examples being they learn the language more natively... they learn customs/morals etc more naturally... many reasons. But the international schools here are very good in Spain


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

I used to be associated with Sotogrande International school and at that time (15 years ago) it was very good - and I hear good things about it now too. 

It's very near the coast and amenities, and only slightly more expensive than your guide amount.

A good proportion of the students aren't expat by the way but Spanish.


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## LookingForABetterLife (Jul 24, 2016)

Thank you all for the replies.
Albir looks very nice. I will look into it and also Sotogrande. Thanks for the tips 

I did look at the NABBs school sites first and did lots of searching on old posts on this forum, but many of the schools aren't very open about fees. I mailed a few but only got one reply, hence my query as it seems this information is top secret or something.

I kind of agree about the state schooling suggestions, but I do have a few concerns. My main one is the uncertainty of Brexit. If we have to go home, it would be good for our child to be up to speed on UK schooling rather than be bottom of the class. I have also heard that a lot of Spanish children go to international schools too, so I imagine learning the language there will be fine - this is something we would take very seriously. 
Regarding state schools, how did your children get on there - were they accepted and happy and were they treated fairly when it came to getting jobs after school?


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

For info here is the fee schedule for Sotogrande (last year).


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## yesican (Jan 18, 2016)

This might be relevant /irrelevant but the private school that our 12 year old is going to from September is about 40 minutes away and she gets picked up and dropped off everyday by a school bus.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Mine went to the school in Torre Muelle, near Benalmadena http://www.thebritishcollege.com/ and we lived on the Urbanacion there - so the children walked to school everyday, which was great, as was the school. 

Jo xxx


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## Madliz (Feb 4, 2011)

My son was 4 when we arrived here. The eldest started immediately at a local nursery that offered English classes. 
Some months later, in the September, he started at a 'bilingüal' private school, where 'English' was spoken in about 30% of the lessons. All his classmates were Spanish. All the teachers were Spanish. He learnt to speak Spanish! He continued there until he was 10, when he moved to a NABSS school. There, 70% of the classes were in English, 30% Spanish (as required by law), and followed the British National Curriculum. Once again, he was normally the only native English speaker in the class (we don't live on the costas!). He took iGCSEs and AS and A'Levels and was offered places at four UK universities. 

The early grounding in Spanish, the fact that all his friends were Spanish, the additional English tuition and English spoken at home, combined to produce a fully bilingüal adult, Spanish to speakers of Spanish and English to speakers of English. 

At the time we arrived, mid-90s, his school fees cost less than my brothers paid for childminders in the UK.


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## sadlybroke (Jun 19, 2012)

Sotogrande is VERY expensive. Also, they don't teach the British curriculum any more.

The cheapest international schools on the Costa de Sol are Sunny View (Torremolinos), Benalmadena International College (Benalmadena Costa), The British College (Benalmadena) and St Anthonys (Mijas Golf). I am not sure if there are any reasonably priced schools in the Marbella area - possibly some closer to Estepona could be but they are primary schools only and when your child grows up you'd be stuck with the expensive secondary schools in Marbella.

I have the PDF fyer from Sunny View for 2015-2016:

Year 1 ... €5570 
Year 2-6 ... €5720
Year 7-9 ... €7050
Year 10-11 ... €8850
A-Level ... €9210

There are additional fees, e.g. around €180 for books (per year), €200 registration fee, etc.

I'd recommend you shortlist a few schools and visit them. We didn't like the British College at all (cramped) and have mixed feelings about St Anthonys (apparently they do not have a library because kids don't like reading so they don't force them to read, as the lady who showed us around explained). BIC was our favourite... but we moved back to the UK before the school year started.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

sadlybroke said:


> Sotogrande is VERY expensive. Also, they don't teach the British curriculum any more.
> 
> The cheapest international schools on the Costa de Sol are Sunny View (Torremolinos), Benalmadena International College (Benalmadena Costa), The British College (Benalmadena) and St Anthonys (Mijas Golf). I am not sure if there are any reasonably priced schools in the Marbella area - possibly some closer to Estepona could be but they are primary schools only and when your child grows up you'd be stuck with the expensive secondary schools in Marbella.
> 
> ...


When we lived in that area, Sunny View was considered the best, closely followed by The British College (We didnt find it cramped??), St Anthony wasnt so popular..... but that was just the local "hearesay". The best thing to do is go and have a look - but make sure you look at the kids going in and out of the school - their behaviour, their attitudes, how they look...... are they happy, polite, friendly, noisy........

Jo xxx


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## LookingForABetterLife (Jul 24, 2016)

Thanks for the Sunny View tip, I had found that one too from a post someone else had made on the forum and they do sound quite interesting. A visit does sound wise. Sotogrande is way out of our price range at present.

Any nice areas to live near Sunny View? I had a quick scan on google maps and did some street view checks and it was a bit hard to tell. I guess we would need to visit the area and have a good look around to get a feel for the place. Regarding the sort of place we like, we both love Lanzarote, in terms of it not being over developed, but we both agree that island would be too quiet for us long term, hence the focus on mainland Spain as even if we lived in a quiet area, we could always travel to a big city to get a fix of crowds, culture, etc.


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