Colegio CEU San Pablo Valencia

We moved our children to CEU San Pablo Valencia in Moncada and have been very happy with the school. One of the things we particularly like is the balance between Spanish and English. The teachers are Spanish and generally have younger assistants who speak a reasonable level of English, and the school aims for roughly a 50/50 balance between Spanish and English, with some Valenciano as well. For our children, who came in as native English speakers, this has been extremely important. The school understood that adapting to Spanish would take time and never made them feel uncomfortable or pressured. They were very helpful in taking our children, together with other international pupils, aside for additional Spanish support so that they could integrate and adapt to the language as quickly as possible. This was handled as part of helping the children settle into the school, rather than feeling like another opportunity to charge parents extra money. The class sizes are also excellent. Our experience has been around 20–21 children per teacher, together with an assistant, which means the children receive a good level of attention. The entire school has recently undergone a major renovation and the facilities are excellent. Everything feels new, modern and well maintained, and there is a huge amount of space for the children. It feels like a proper school campus rather than a small private school trying to fit too many children into limited facilities. There is also a genuine family atmosphere. The staff are friendly, approachable and the school feels established. CEU obviously has a long history and teaching record behind it, which personally gives us more confidence than some newer private schools where fees can be very high but the school itself has little track record and sometimes a high turnover of teachers. The school is Catholic, but in our experience religion is not forced onto the children. We personally appreciate the traditional Catholic values and the more grounded environment that comes with that, without feeling that the children are constantly being pushed towards particular social or political viewpoints. The fees are also very reasonable for the standard of school, and importantly we have not experienced a constant stream of unexpected extra charges. We did have one bullying incident involving one of our children. I cannot say that the situation was resolved perfectly, but what I appreciated was that the school invited us in, listened properly to our side of the story, took our concerns seriously and raised the issue with the other child and their family. For me, that willingness to listen to parents and try to deal with a difficult situation matters. Overall, we are very pleased with CEU. The combination of good class sizes, excellent facilities, Spanish and English education, supportive teachers, fair pricing and a genuine family atmosphere makes it a school we would happily recommend to other families, particularly international families looking for their children to properly integrate into life in Spain.

AnonymousAbout a child in: Primaria (6–12)