Madrid School Admissions: What Has Changed for 2027-28
Madrid’s school system does not change much from one year to the next. What changes is where the pressure sits, and going into 2027-28 it has moved in ways that matter most to families arriving from abroad.
Between the public system, the concertado network and one of Europe’s largest concentrations of international schools, most families arriving in Madrid find they have more options than they expected. The difficulty is rarely a shortage of schools. It is working out which of the three routes is genuinely open to your family, on your timeline.
Here is what our consultants in Madrid are seeing going into the 2027-28 academic year.
The March Window Is Two Weeks Long, and Most Relocating Families Miss It
The main admissions round for public and concertado schools opens in March. For the 2026-27 cycle the window ran from 11 to 25 March 2026, and the pattern has held steady for several years, so families planning for September 2027 entry should expect roughly two weeks in the middle of March 2027. The exact 2027 dates had not been published when this was written.
A provisional list of applicants follows in April, and the final list of admitted students in May. Enrollment then runs through the early summer, and this is the part families overlook: as accepted students formally enroll, a number of places come free again. Openings may appear in July, or even in September, that did not exist in May.
Applying in the March round requires being registered as a resident of Madrid, which in practice waits on a signed lease. That sequencing catches families out every year, because most people do not learn about a move in time to have an address before a March deadline.
Missing the window is not the setback it sounds like. Families arriving later apply off cycle and are allocated to schools with availability, and that process is now handled centrally and entirely online, which has made it more straightforward to navigate than it once was.
The International Sector Is Changing Hands
Madrid’s international schools span British, American, IB, French, German and other curricula, and the sector has been unusually active. New schools are opening, established ones are being acquired by international school groups and investment funds, and campuses are expanding.
For a relocating family this matters more than it first appears. A shortlist built from research done eighteen months ago may no longer describe the schools on it. A change of ownership can bring new leadership, a different fee structure and a different admissions posture, and none of that is visible from a school’s website.
It is one of the reasons we spend as much time on the current state of the market as on the schools themselves.
Turnover Is Why Mid-Year Arrivals Do Better Than They Expect
Entry to the most sought-after international schools is competitive, and waiting lists for popular year groups can run long. That is the part families hear about.
The more useful point is the one they rarely hear. International schools see considerably higher student turnover than local ones, because the families in them are mobile. Places open mid-year in a way they simply do not in the public and concertado sectors. A family arriving in October or February often has better options than they assume, provided somebody is asking the right schools at the right moment.
Public and Concertado Demand Has Held Steady, but Not Across the Whole City
Concertado schools sit between the public and private sectors. They are privately run, but because the regional government funds them they follow the same official guidelines as public schools, and on top of that they charge modest fees that vary from school to school. They remain among the most sought-after options in Madrid.
Two forces have been pulling in opposite directions. Spain’s birth rate has fallen, and applications from Spanish families have declined over the past two decades. At the same time Madrid has become a city people move to permanently, and arrivals from abroad have kept demand at many public and concertado schools broadly stable.
Availability varies sharply by district. Public and concertado places are easier to find in parts of the south of the region, and in districts such as Hortaleza and Ciudad Lineal, where residential development has brought larger schools with more capacity. In central districts such as Salamanca, Retiro and Chamberí the offer is smaller and demand from resident families is high, and places are correspondingly hard to secure.
The other thing worth knowing early is how places are allocated. The baremo awards points in a clear order of weight: a sibling already at the school counts for far more than anything else, then proximity of your home or work address, then family income. A family arriving from abroad without a sibling already at the school starts at a genuine disadvantage, however strong the case for the child. The criteria are published by the Comunidad de Madrid, and they are worth reading against your own situation before you settle on a particular school.
The Bilingual Program Is Not What Most Arriving Families Think
This is the single most common misunderstanding we correct.
Madrid’s bilingual state schools teach part of the curriculum in English. The program began in 2004 with a first group of public primary schools and now runs across several hundred schools, public and concertado. It is in a consolidation phase rather than an expanding one.
The program was built to make Spanish-speaking children in Madrid fluent in English, not to make Spanish schools accessible to children who do not speak Spanish. The distinction matters enormously. In primary, around 30 percent of teaching time is in English, typically English itself plus two further subjects chosen by the school. Spanish language and literature, history and geography, and mathematics are taught in Spanish. In secondary the balance is similar, with roughly two thirds of the curriculum in Spanish and the option of subjects such as biology, economics or robotics in English at a higher level.
A child arriving with no Spanish is not placed straight into a bilingual class. The district’s Servicio de Apoyo a la Escolarización assigns them to an aula de enlace, where they learn Spanish alongside other new arrivals and join their age group for less language-dependent subjects such as physical education and music. The maximum stay is one academic year.
None of this makes the public route a poor choice. It makes it a choice that needs planning, and one that works best when a family understands from the outset that the child will need Spanish to follow the curriculum.
Special Education Has Been Protected, and the Process Runs in Spanish
Madrid organizes special education into three modalities: ordinaria, meaning mainstream with support; combinada, split between a mainstream school and a special education center; and centros de educación especial. Placement follows evaluation by the regional psychology teams.
The most significant change of recent years runs against the national trend. Where national policy has moved toward integrating all students into mainstream schools, Madrid has protected its special education provision and expanded specific classrooms within concertado schools.
How long an evaluation takes depends on the child, and we would rather not quote an average that would mislead anyone. What we can say is that the process is conducted in Spanish, and that families arriving from abroad find this the hardest part to manage alone. In our experience the work that shortens the timeline happens before the formal procedure begins: identifying schools with the right provision, speaking to them directly, and arriving at the public process with the groundwork already done.
Two Things That Catch Families Out Every Year
Short days in September and June. Public and concertado schools run reduced hours at the start and end of the academic year. Families who have not budgeted for additional childcare in those weeks get caught out, every single year. Some schools do offer alternatives, but they need to be asked about in advance rather than discovered in the first week.
Year placement follows year of birth. A child is placed in the Spanish system according to the year they were born, which does not always match the year group they have just left. The mismatch is common for families coming from a system with a different cut-off date, and close to guaranteed for families arriving from the Southern Hemisphere. It is far better to know about a repeated or skipped year before you accept a place than after.
A third, for families partway through an international qualification: IGCSEs do not transfer straight into the Spanish system. The boards differ, and switching part way through is rarely straightforward. Planning a year ahead matters more here than families expect.
Looking Further Ahead: University
More families are now weighing Madrid as a long-term base rather than a two-year posting, which makes the university question worth asking earlier than it used to be. Madrid holds the largest concentration of university students in Spain, with six public universities, thirteen private ones and the central campus of the national distance university. Public institutions offer strong value through subsidized tuition, while private ones tend toward more specialized or English-taught programs at higher cost.
Where a child sits at fifteen, and which curriculum they are following, shapes what is realistic at eighteen. The Spanish route runs through the Bachillerato to the PAU. An international route may lead somewhere else entirely, and the decision is easier to make at thirteen than at seventeen.
Planning a Move to Madrid?
Our consultants in Madrid work across the public, concertado and international sectors. Most of what we do in a first conversation is help a family work out which of the three is realistic for them, on their timeline, and that is usually worth more than a list of schools.
Get in touch with a consultant who places Madrid families every year, for an hour of clarity →
Bennett International Education Consultancy works directly with hundreds of families each year across the globe. We support families by helping them make informed decisions about the best-fit schools for their children; with our guidance, they secure placement in preschools, private day schools, public/state schools, boarding schools, colleges and universities, including schools with particular programs, such as special needs support.
