Good to know
Good to Know
- If you need a school genuinely inside Girona city, the realistic bilingual/international options are Montjuïc Girona International School (multilingual, Montessori-influenced, Cambridge IGCSE + French track) and Montessori Palau Girona.
- For a full British curriculum with IGCSE/A-Levels, the two named options (Saint George's School and International School Costa Brava) are both outside the immediate city center — Saint George's is a short drive in Fornells de la Selva, while ISCB is on the coast in Platja d'Aro, about 40 minutes away, so factor in commute or school bus logistics.
- Several schools (Saint George's, Montessori Palau Girona) do not publish tuition rates online — you'll need to contact them directly for a current quote.
- Published tuition figures for MGIS come from a third-party school-fee aggregator and are explicitly labeled illustrative/subject to change, so treat them as a ballpark rather than a guaranteed quote.
- Girona's own international-school selection is genuinely small (a handful of schools total), so 'admissions open all year round' at private schools like ISCB doesn't guarantee a seat in every grade — inquire early.
- If you're looking at a bilingual (rather than fully private international) school, check whether it's a concertada/public center — those run on Catalonia's fixed March application → June results/waitlist → June matriculation calendar, not rolling admissions.
- Being registered at a local address (empadronamiento) before the March application window matters for concertada/public school priority — arriving after the window means a separate, more limited out-of-cycle placement process.
- Homeschooling is not illegal in Spain but also isn't a legally recognized schooling option — treat it as a genuine grey area, get local legal advice, and double-check your specific residence visa's school-enrollment requirements before relying on it.
- Catalonia is generally described as more tolerant of homeschooling than some other Spanish regions and has a regional support body, but we could not confirm an actual dedicated homeschooling community physically based in Girona city itself — check with the regional Catalan association directly rather than assuming a local group exists.
Schools And Curricula
- Overview
- Girona city itself has a limited number of true international/bilingual schools; the fullest range of British and American-style options sit in the wider Girona province (e.g. Costa Brava coastal towns) rather than in the city center itself.
Schools
Montjuïc Girona International School (MGIS)
- Location
- Carrer Bellpuig, 8, 17007 Girona — within the city
- Age Range
- 1 to 18 years
Tuition
- Period
- per year
- Range Low
- €6,845
- Range High
- €10,535
- Note
- Published range for the 2024/2025 school year; varies by child's age/grade and is illustrative — schools revise pricing annually.
Curricula
- International/European academic programme with Montessori-influenced teaching
- Cambridge IGCSE
- French Curriculum (Alliance Française exams)
Languages Of Instruction
- Catalan
- Spanish
- English
- French
Saint George's School
- Location
- Fornells de la Selva (Girona metro area, roughly a 10-minute drive from the city center, near Girona airport)
- Age Range
- Infant through Baccalaureate (approx. ages 3–18)
Tuition
- Note
- Fees are not published publicly; families must inquire directly with the school.
Curricula
- British curriculum
- IGCSE
- A-Levels
Languages Of Instruction
- English (main teaching language)
- Spanish
- Catalan
Montessori Palau Girona
- Location
- Girona
- Age Range
- 0 to 18 years
Tuition
- Note
- Fees not published in available sources; contact school directly for current pricing.
Curricula
- Montessori method (following Dr. Maria Montessori's principles)
Languages Of Instruction
- Catalan
- Spanish
- English
International School Costa Brava (ISCB)
- Location
- Platja d'Aro — roughly a 40-minute drive from Girona city center, so outside the immediate city area
- Age Range
- Nursery to Year 13 (approx. ages 3–18)
Tuition
- Note
- Fees not published in the sources reviewed; described as the only full British international school (Nursery through A-Level) in Girona province, but it sits well outside a 10-minute radius of the city center.
Curricula
- British National Curriculum for England
- EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage)
- IGCSE (Pearson Edexcel certified centre)
- A-Levels
Languages Of Instruction
- English (100% English-language teaching)
- Catalan and Spanish taught as subjects
Enrollment And Homeschooling
Homeschooling
- Practical Risk
- Outcomes for homeschooling families vary significantly by autonomous community and even by individual case: some families are simply left alone for years, while others have faced warnings, social-services scrutiny, or court proceedings over non-enrollment. A 2010 Constitutional Court ruling held that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to homeschool, but also did not criminalize the practice outright.
- Legal Status Spain
- Decriminalized or tolerated
- Legal Status Explanation
- Homeschooling in Spain is not explicitly illegal, but it is also not recognized as a valid legal educational pathway — schooling is compulsory under the Constitution and the Organic Law of Education, and the law is simply silent on whether that education must happen inside a school building. This silence is what creates the grey area rather than any clear permission.
- Compulsory Schooling Ages
- Basic education is compulsory and free under Article 27 of the Spanish Constitution, covering ages 6 to 16 under the Organic Law of Education (LOE, as modified by LOMLOE).
- Girona City Specific Community
- No independently verifiable, Girona-city-specific homeschooling co-op, meetup group, or physical community was found in this research — the documented support networks (ALE, the Catalan Coordinadora) operate at the national or Catalonia-wide regional level, not as a named Girona-city group. Families should treat 'there's an active homeschooling scene in Girona itself' as unconfirmed rather than assume it from the wider Catalan-region pattern.
- Visa Specific Risk For Foreign Families
- This matters specifically for nomads and expats: some Spanish residence visa categories require proof that resident children are enrolled in a recognized school, so families on a visa should check their specific visa conditions before assuming homeschooling is a safe default — legal advice from a lawyer familiar with Spanish education law is the standard recommendation before withdrawing a child from school.
- Catalonia Regional Context
- Catalonia is repeatedly identified as one of the more tolerant and more organized regions for homeschooling within Spain, with a more established homeschooling community than in many other autonomous communities. A Catalonia-specific support body — the Coordinadora Catalana per al Reconeixement i la Regulació de l'Educació a Casa — exists to help homeschooling families with curriculum planning and regional advocacy, alongside the national association ALE (Asociación para la Libre Educación).
International Bilingual School Enrollment
- Girona School Landscape
- Girona is a small city with a genuinely limited number of international/bilingual options compared to Barcelona or Madrid. The main names locally are International School Costa Brava (ISCB, British curriculum, Fornells de la Selva just outside the city), Montjuïc Girona International School (private, in the city, ages 0–18), Bell-lloc International School (bilingual), and Montessori Palau.
- How Far In Advance To Apply
- For private international schools like ISCB or Montjuïc, contacting the school 6–12 months ahead of the intended start (even though the process itself is fast once started) is the realistic safety margin given how few seats exist citywide. For concertada/public bilingual schools, foreign families need to be physically resident and registered (empadronado) in time for the March application window for a September start — arriving mid-year means going through a separate, more limited out-of-cycle placement process handled directly by the school or the local education office rather than the main preinscripció calendar.
Required Documents Typical
- Child's passport/ID and family book or equivalent proof of filiation
- Proof of local address (padrón/empadronamiento) — used for proximity-based priority scoring in the public/concertada system
- Vaccination record; if unavailable, an official medical certificate or health booklet listing vaccine dates is accepted instead
- Previous school records/transcripts (translation may be needed for non-Spanish documents)
- Student ID code (RALC) for anyone previously enrolled anywhere in the Catalan system — new arrivals are assigned one automatically once enrolled
Concertada Bilingual Schools Public Calendar
- What This Is
- Some 'bilingual' schools families consider (Catalan/Spanish/English trilingual concertada or public centers) are not privately run — they fall under Catalonia's centralized Generalitat admissions system, which runs a fixed calendar rather than rolling admissions.
- Application Window
- For the 2025–2026 course, the sol·licitud (application) period for second-cycle infant education and primary school ran from 12 to 26 March, and for ESO (secondary) from 14 to 26 March — this March window is the recurring pattern for the following September's intake.
- Waitlist And Placement
- Admission decisions go through a local admissions guarantee commission that reviews requests and determines placement based on available school places, family preferences, balanced distribution of students, and specific-needs quotas. Final school-place offers and the admitted-student and waitlist lists are published in June (10 June for the 2026–2027 cycle), with a subsequent short window (1–3 June for that cycle) for families with no assigned place to expand their requests to schools with remaining openings.
- Matriculation After Acceptance
- Once a place is confirmed, formal matriculació (enrollment) for accepted students in second-cycle infant, primary, and ESO for the 2025–2026 cycle took place from 22 to 30 June; missing this window without justification is treated as renouncing the place.
Private International Schools Admissions Process
- How It Works
- International School Costa Brava (ISCB), the only British-curriculum school in Girona province, advertises admissions as open all year round with a simple, rolling application process rather than a fixed annual window.
- Practical Note
- This 'apply anytime' model applies to fully private international schools. It does not mean seats are always available in every grade — with only a handful of international schools serving the whole province, popular year groups (especially Reception/early primary and any grade with few total spots) can fill up well before the school year starts, so early inquiry is still strongly advised even though the process itself is described as fast and straightforward.
AI-generated estimateData refreshed July 2026
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Data last updated July 2026 · Verify anything important.