# Applying to Bilingual Primary School



## Expat4056 (Aug 1, 2011)

We will arrive in Madrid soon after New Year's day, with our two children who are in the 3rd and 1st grade in the US. We don't have housing yet, but we want to be as ready as possible, and maybe even have our contacts in Madrid help some, with getting our kids into a bilingual primary school... probably in one of the barrios to the south of the city, because my wife will be working in Leganes.

Can anyone please provide information on whom to contact so we can even see about applying (I believe the application may be a generic one that does not depend on which school one is applying to, at least at first... at least that is what it seems to say on the application that I found, which has a bad link now.. Or should we just phone up the schools that look like they are in a good location for us, so we can try and get things moving?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Expat4056 said:


> We will arrive in Madrid soon after New Year's day, with our two children who are in the 3rd and 1st grade in the US. We don't have housing yet, but we want to be as ready as possible, and maybe even have our contacts in Madrid help some, with getting our kids into a bilingual primary school... probably in one of the barrios to the south of the city, because my wife will be working in Leganes.
> 
> Can anyone please provide information on whom to contact so we can even see about applying (I believe the application may be a generic one that does not depend on which school one is applying to, at least at first... at least that is what it seems to say on the application that I found, which has a bad link now.. Or should we just phone up the schools that look like they are in a good location for us, so we can try and get things moving?
> 
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you.


are you talking about state schools or private?

if state school it will depend upon where you live - each school will have a geographical catchment area, so first you need an address - and although it varies in different parts of Spain, in my area you apply to the local 'town hall' & they tell you which school you are allocated 

if private school then you apply to each school individually


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## Brangus (May 1, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> if state school it will depend upon where you live - each school will have a geographical catchment area, so first you need an address


Here in Castilla-La Mancha, a parent's work address may be used on the application for public schools. Rules often vary from region to region, however.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Expat4056 said:


> We will arrive in Madrid soon after New Year's day, with our two children who are in the 3rd and 1st grade in the US. We don't have housing yet, but we want to be as ready as possible, and maybe even have our contacts in Madrid help some, with getting our kids into a bilingual primary school... probably in one of the barrios to the south of the city, because my wife will be working in Leganes.
> 
> Can anyone please provide information on whom to contact so we can even see about applying (I believe the application may be a generic one that does not depend on which school one is applying to, at least at first... at least that is what it seems to say on the application that I found, which has a bad link now.. Or should we just phone up the schools that look like they are in a good location for us, so we can try and get things moving?
> 
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you.


Here's the information about state schools, that you'll have o run through a translation tool if you don't speak Spanish. After a quick look through here are 2 important pieces of info. In the phone number 012 they can tell you which schools have places and that you can pick a form up to apply for the place in any school.
http://www.madrid.org/dat_capital/tematico/pdf/Instrucciones_impreso2011.pdf


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Here's the information about state schools, that you'll have o run through a translation tool if you don't speak Spanish. After a quick look through here are 2 important pieces of info. In the phone number 012 they can tell you which schools have places and that you can pick a form up to apply for the place in any school.
> http://www.madrid.org/dat_capital/tematico/pdf/Instrucciones_impreso2011.pdf


So there aren't catchment areas like there are in my area?


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

xabiachica said:


> So there aren't catchment areas like there are in my area?


It seems to me that our 2 areas operate in a different way. As far as I know you can apply where you want, but you'll be awarded more points if it's near your home or near your place of work, and of coure it's all points based. In our medium sized town I could choose from 4 primary schools, but I think I got more points if we chose the nearest one. Originally our daughter went to the nearest (10 mins walking), but we didn't like it, so we changed her. We had to wait for 2 years before a place came up, but we were never told that we couldn't apply because it wasn't in our catchment area. It was a matter of points and places. When she was awarded the place she was also given a place on the school bus, free. (Nowadays I'm not sure if that bus is running 'cos I know they cut the bus for secondary school students) In practise, it seems to me, not many parents apply outside of what we would understand to be our catchment area because the logistics. 
The other thing is that as far as I know you don't apply to the town hall, but to the school. However, I have never applied when the school year had already started. Looking at the info in th PDF quickly it seems you still apply to the school, but they can tell you the correct way to do things at a school if you go in.
To get info like this you have to go to the school secretary in the office _secretaría_ and they are often not able to attend the public all the time.
What phrase do they use in your area (in Spanish, not Valenciano!) to refer to catchment area?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> It seems to me that our 2 areas operate in a different way. As far as I know you can apply where you want, but you'll be awarded more points if it's near your home or near your place of work, and of coure it's all points based. In our medium sized town I could choose from 4 primary schools. Originally our daughter went to the nearest (10 mins walking), but we didn't like it so we changed her. We had to wait for 2 years before a place came up, but we were never told that we couldn't apply because it wasn't in our catchment area. It was a matter of points and places. When she was awarded the place she was also given a place on the school bus, free. (Nowadays I'm not sure if that bus is running 'cos I know hey cut the bus for secondary school students) In practise, it seems to me, not many parents apply outside of what we would understand to be our catchment area because the logistics.
> The other thing is that as far as I know you don't apply to the town hall, but to the school. However, I have never applied when the school year had already started. Looking at the info in th PDF quickly it seems you still apply to the school, but they can tell you the correct way to do things at a school if you go in.
> To get info like this you have to go to the school secretary in the office secretaría and they are often not able to attend the public all the time.
> What phrase do they use in your area (in Spanish, not Valenciano!) to refer to catchment area?


You can ask for your child to go to a different school, but in practice the chance of a place outside your area is just about zero. Some former classmates of dd2 actually had to move schools when it was discovered that they had moved, however my dds were able to stay in the same school when we did because the one nearest to the new house was already full.
I have no clue what they call catchment area....I could barely speak Spanish when my kids started and it was explained in very simple terms.....if you live THERE, your kids go to THAT school.


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## Expat4056 (Aug 1, 2011)

*Applying to bilingual schools*

I appreciate the comments and the helpful literature re our quest to get our 2 primary school age kids into school when we arrive in the Madrid area in January...

We want to go to a statee bilingual primary school, perhaps near or in Getafe or Legones just south of Madrid. 

Somewhere we should be able to get a list of what we need to apply... vaccination records, birth certificates, etc. and whether or not they need translations and the Hague apostille stamp, etc...

I think I may take the bull by the horns, so to speak,and phone up a school or two and see what they can tell me.

We do have the work address for my wife, so maybe we can go ahead and submit to the bilingual state school nearest there and see what happens. We are likely to live near there, as well... And indeed the money my wife will receive there will be taxed by the Spanish government, so we would seem to be on firm ground applying to a state school!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Expat4056 said:


> I appreciate the comments and the helpful literature re our quest to get our 2 primary school age kids into school when we arrive in the Madrid area in January...
> 
> We want to go to a statee bilingual primary school, perhaps near or in Getafe or Legones just south of Madrid.
> 
> ...


good luck  - it's certainly worth a try

you shouldn't need anything translated or apostilled, and as far as I understand it - as long as your wife is legally living & working here, then her child is able to attend state school


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Here is a list of all (?) the state primary schools in Madrid that are bilingual. Look at the end of the list where it says *sur *in the 2nd column. Then look at the 5th column to see if it's in Getafe or Leganes

http://www.madrid.org/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=filename%3Dlistado+CEIP+bilingues.pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1271587616771&ssbinary=true


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