Highlands School El Encinar

A large Catholic bilingual school in La Moraleja, part of the Regnum Christi network, with strong academics and a values-led culture that families either love or find intense.

Founded in 1999 in El Encinar de los Reyes, Highlands has grown to around 1,300 students from age 1 to 18. It is trilingual in practice, runs the Spanish curriculum alongside Cambridge IGCSE and the IB Diploma, and holds CIS accreditation. Sister schools Los Fresnos in Boadilla and Everest Monteclaro give the network real reach across the metro.

Parents praise the pastoral attention, the breadth of sport, and the willingness to support children with mild learning differences. The Catholic identity is not soft-pedalled, so families who want a secular school should look elsewhere. Boys and girls are educated separately from primary onwards, which is standard for the Legionaries-of-Christ tradition the network sits within. Recent press coverage in 2025 of safeguarding issues at the related La Moraleja school has put the wider network's protocols under closer scrutiny.

• Highlands School El Encinar is a private Catholic school in Hortaleza, Madrid, part of the Regnum Christi / Semper Altius network and routinely ranked highly in El Mundo's lists of Spanish private schools.
• Parent ratings on Spanish school directories cluster around 4.1 to 4.2 from a moderate review pool. Reviewers praise the level of English, attentive teaching staff and a values-driven environment.
• A 2025 criminal investigation against a former chaplain at the school dominates external coverage. The chaplain was arrested in March 2025 in connection with alleged abuse of multiple female pupils. Spanish national press reported that he had subsequently worked at two further schools after concerns were first raised. By May 2025, an eighth complaint had been forwarded to police. The principal resigned shortly after the arrests.
• The school has stated it is cooperating with the investigation and has run preventive workshops that surfaced at least one further account. Coverage attaches to the Legionaries of Christ / Regnum Christi structure, not to current teaching staff.
• Critical parent comments outside the criminal case focus on the school's strict ethos, with reviewers saying children who do not fit the model can struggle, and on university-entrance results being uneven for a school of this profile.
• Families considering the school should weigh the academic and bilingual reputation against an active and ongoing safeguarding investigation.