Going to school in Spain: three kinds of school, and an address that chooses

Spain has three kinds of school, and the names say exactly how the bill runs. The público is state-run and free. The concertado is a private school (often Catholic) that is funded by the state — the education is formally free, though many concertados ask for "voluntary" contributions of tens of euros a month. The privado is fully private, with school fees on the international model. Most Spanish children attend a público or concertado, and the same admission applies to both.

Your home address is your school choice

Admission runs per region, but the criteria resemble each other everywhere: siblings already at the school count, family income sometimes too, and the heaviest criterion is the proximity of your home address or work. Your registration with the municipality — the empadronamiento from phase 4 of the step-by-step plan — is therefore also the key to the school: your choice of home determines your list of schools. Whoever first looks for a school and then for a house is doing it in the wrong order.

The regular application period falls in spring (Madrid, for example: mid-March) for the school year that begins in September. If you arrive outside that period — and emigrants do so almost by definition — there's a fixed route: the regional placement service assigns a school with a place. So your child always ends up somewhere; it's just that with late entry you choose from what's left.

Starting without Spanish: it's taken care of

Compulsory schooling runs from 6 to 16, and a child who doesn't speak Spanish is no exception for the system but a familiar situation. Regions have provisions for it — Madrid, for example, has aulas de enlace: reception classes in which older primary-school children and secondary pupils get intensive Spanish, parallel to their regular class, with the aim of joining fully as quickly as possible. Young children (nursery age, first years of primaria) usually start directly in the regular class — at that age immersion is the fastest teacher.

What this means for your choice: ask the region (not just the school) what language support there is, especially for teenagers — for them the transition is the hardest and a good reception class makes the difference between a tough year and a lost year.

Two more practical things. Schoolbooks and materials aren't free everywhere; many regions have loan schemes (Madrid: the ACCEDE programme) — ask about it at enrolment. And bring to that enrolment what every Spanish parent brings: identity documents, your empadronamiento and the vaccination booklet. In bilingual regions your child is taught in or with the regional language — you already knew that from the choice of region, and at school it becomes concrete.