Best Bilingual Schools in Madrid

Comparison table

# Best Bilingual Schools in Madrid

Madrid · Curriculum

Madrid is the easiest city in Spain to find a bilingual school, and one of the easiest to be misled in. Almost every private and semi-private school in the Comunidad markets itself as bilingual, because the regional government has spent twenty years pushing English into the state and concertado system through the Programa Bilingüe and the parallel BEDA scheme in Catholic schools. The label can mean anything from one English specialist circulating between classrooms to a full English-medium British school teaching Lengua and Sociales in Spanish.

The schools below are those where the second language is genuinely a working language of instruction. Three groups: English-Spanish dual-medium privados like King's, ICS, Hastings and Brains; other-language national systems with substantial Spanish content (Lycée Français, Deutsche Schule, Liceo Italiano, Colegio Suizo); and concertados and privados delivering the BEDA or Programa Bilingüe model at the upper end of the 30-50% range.

What "bilingual" means here

Three distinct things sit under the same word in Madrid. The regional Programa Bilingüe, launched in 2004 and now in around half of Madrid's state primary and secondary schools, requires at least 30% of teaching hours in English and reaches up to 50% in the strongest centres. BEDA, the Bilingual English Development & Assessment programme run since the 1990s by the Federación Española de Religiosos de la Enseñanza in concertado schools, has three internal levels (BEDA, BEDA Plus, BEDA Excellence) signalling depth of English exposure. The private bilingual privado is an unsubsidised model where families pay full fees for a school delivering genuine 50-50 instruction or beyond.

A concertado in the Programa Bilingüe charges nominal fees plus monthly enseñanzas complementarias of around €200-400, with English delivered by Spanish-trained teachers holding a C1. A privado bilingüe charges €5,000-15,000 a year and usually employs native English speakers for the English-medium subjects. A full international school like ICS or Hastings charges €15,000-25,000 and inverts the model: English is the working language and Spanish is taught as a subject, with the Spanish state requiring Lengua y Literatura, Conocimiento del Medio and Geografía e Historia in Spanish to validate the diploma.

The strong bilingual schools in Madrid

King's College, The British School of Madrid in La Moraleja is the longest-running British school in the city and the default reference for English-Spanish bilingual education at the higher fee end. Spanish is taught from age 3 as a working subject, with around 35-40% of primary teaching in Spanish tapering through GCSE and A-Level. Part of Inspired Education, ages 1 to 16 on this site.

International College Spain is Madrid's longest-established English-medium IB Continuum school, also in La Moraleja and now operated by Nord Anglia. Spanish runs alongside English from PYP onwards, with a Spanish lengua y cultura track for native speakers and Spanish-as-additional-language for the international cohort. Fees €12,200-€25,600.

Hastings School runs six small age-specific campuses across central Madrid (Chamartín, Arturo Soria, Conde Orgaz) connected by shuttle, around 1,375 students total. British curriculum to IGCSE and IB Diploma at sixth form, Spanish taught throughout and validated for the Spanish exit qualification.

The British School of Madrid in Somosaguas, Pozuelo, founded 1940 and recently separated from the British Council, runs a genuine double-diploma route: students exit with both A-Levels and the Spanish Bachillerato through the BiBac programme. Fees €5,100-€14,070, noticeably below the La Moraleja British privados.

Colegio Brains is the Spanish-founded bilingual privado, dual-medium since 1979, three Madrid campuses and IB Diploma at exit. Closer in feel to the BEDA model than the British model, with longer English hours and a stronger English department than most concertados.

Lycée Français de Madrid, AEFE-affiliated since 1884, around 4,100 students on the Conde de Orgaz main campus and the Saint-Exupéry secondary site in La Moraleja. French is the working language; Spanish is mandatory from CP and reaches near-native level by terminale. Fees €6,200-€7,650 reflect the partial French state subsidy.

Deutsche Schule Madrid, operating since 1896, moved to its purpose-built Montecarmelo campus in 2015. Around 1,000 pupils exit with the German Abitur and the Spanish Bachillerato in parallel. Fees of €5,050-€7,990 are one of the strongest value points in Madrid for a full foreign-system school.

Liceo Italiano de Madrid is the Italian state-system school in Centro/Chamartín, charging €920-€1,180 as an Italian state institution operating abroad. Italian and Spanish run in parallel from infantil; exit qualification is the Italian Esame di Stato.

Colegio Suizo Madrid in Alcobendas runs the Swiss curriculum to Maturity, with German as the primary language and Spanish as a working second language. Around 600 students aged 2 to 18, not-for-profit since 1968.

Where the trade-offs land

Choosing a bilingual school in Madrid usually comes down to which language the child needs to come out strongest in. No school produces equal-strength biliteracy in two languages without favouring one. The British privados produce strong English at the cost of slightly weaker written Spanish than a Spanish-system school would deliver; the Lycée and Deutsche Schule produce strong French and German with Spanish that is functional but not always at native-academic level; the BEDA and Programa Bilingüe concertados produce strong Spanish and good but not native-level English.

Exit qualification flexibility is the second axis. Schools running a single foreign system (King's, ICS, Lycée, Deutsche, Italian) require Spanish university applicants to do the acreditación UNED or equivalent. Schools running a Spanish-validated track (British School of Madrid, Colegio Base, Hastings via dual-diploma) deliver the Bachillerato directly and skip that step.

Location and price cluster together. La Moraleja and Pozuelo concentrate the high-fee English-medium privados; central Madrid holds the smaller international options (Hastings, Liceo Italiano, parts of King's); Alcobendas and Las Rozas hold the foreign-system schools at the lower fee end.

How to read a bilingual claim

When a Madrid school describes itself as bilingual, the substantive question is what proportion of curricular hours each week are delivered in the second language, by whom, and from what age. A school running at least 50% of contact hours in the second language from infantil onwards, with native or near-native teachers in those subjects, is delivering genuine dual-medium education. A school running 30% with one rotating English specialist is delivering the regulated Programa Bilingüe label, which is a useful start but not the same thing.

The simplest factual check is whether the school can produce a current language-of-instruction schedule by year group, naming which teachers deliver which subjects in which language. The second is whether the school's exit results in the second language stand up: A-Level or IB English Language A grades for Spanish-mother-tongue students, or Spanish Bachillerato results for English-mother-tongue students.

FAQs

Is the Comunidad de Madrid Programa Bilingüe really bilingual? It mandates a minimum of 30% of hours in English in participating state and concertado schools, rising to 50% at the strongest level. Real bilingual exposure, but not the same as a private bilingual school where English is the working language of half the timetable from age 3.

Can my English-speaking child enter a Spanish bilingual privado? Most assume Spanish as the working language and offer Spanish-as-additional-language support only at infantil and lower primary. Entry from age 8 upwards into a Spanish-medium track is harder; an English-medium international school with strong Spanish lessons is usually the better fit.

Which schools deliver both the Bachillerato and a foreign diploma? The British School of Madrid runs the BiBac dual A-Level-plus-Bachillerato. Deutsche Schule delivers Abitur plus Bachillerato. Lycée Français delivers the French baccalauréat plus a recognised Spanish equivalence. Colegio Base offers both Bachillerato and IB Diploma at exit.

What does a BEDA Excellence school offer? BEDA Excellence is the top tier of the Catholic-schools English programme: around 40-50% of timetable in English, native or near-native teachers in those subjects, and Cambridge English certification at every key stage. It approaches what a private bilingual school delivers, at concertado fee levels.

Where do English-speaking expat families typically end up? Most relocating families with limited Spanish gravitate to ICS, Hastings, King's, or one of the Cognita and ISP-run British schools, which run in English and treat Spanish as a serious subject without requiring it as a working language of instruction.