Fifth British school to open in Marbella

Marbella will have a fifth British school in 2011. The school will also be the city’s seventh international centre. The new British school, which will occupy offices in the Real Estate Financial Club on Avenida Ricardo Soriano, is scheduled for launch on 9th September 2010.

Club Financiero Inmobiliario - Real Estate Financial Club - site of a new British school opening this year in Marbella.

In its first year, the new British school, with an initial budget of one million euros, will house up to 100 children aged 2-6 years, to be distributed in six classrooms. Courses will be extended in 2011 to students of ages 7-11. In the future a second building will house students up to 18 years of age.

The Financial Club Building once housed former Mayor Jesús Gil’s administration. The new project was unveiled to the public on Thursday in the same office that Gil once occupied.

The coordinator of the project, Michael Elms, explained that there will be an open enrollment period until shortly before courses begin. In the coming days, Elms said, school officials will begin interviewing children whose parents have applied for places over the Internet.

During the announcement Thursday, Elms was accompanied by the director, Sian Andrews, who has recently directed the opening of a new British school in Moscow, and the general director, John Ordovás, responsible for ensuring that the curriculum meets both British and Spanish standards. The school must obtain approval from Spanish education authorities in order to accept students who are not necessarily British.

Each class will have a teacher and an assistant. Ordovás acknowledged that there is “great demand” in Marbella for “this type of education.”

There are currently six international private schools in Marbella, with four British, one German and one Swedish. 

John Grimmett

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