Hodeja

Buenos dias,
We are a family of four (children almost five and two) who are considering relocating to northern Spain for a few years. My husband has been offered the opportunity of remote working internationally by his Scottish employer and I would very much like to give the children the opportunity of early age bilingualism by living immersed in a different language and culture (potentially for 3 or more years).
We are looking for first hand advice on the state and quality of the primary education system, based on individuals experience with schooling in Catalunya.
We are not really interested in international schools and also not so keen on private schooling if the public system is an acceptable option, because I would like them to integrate easily into the local community.
We have both been schooled in English based education systems and we are open to the idea that schooling in different cultures can take different approaches, but I wouldn't expect the quality of schooling to be any less in either place regardless of language. We do however want to avoid known systemically fraught systems (whether due to underfunding, lack of teachers or other pressures).
We were keen on relocating to Portugal but I have stumbled upon a few blogs with first hand accounts where the posters were very dissatisfied with the education their children received. These could well be outliers, disproportionately represented because of their interest to readers. I don't know. This is why I am trying to research first hand information from people in North eastern Spanish and also Northern Portuguese primary education systems so we can make the best decision for our children's future based on local accounts from people within both systems.
I appreciate any experience and advice people here could offer about schooling in Northern Spain and if there is anyone who has experience in both countries that could offer a comparison of one against the other then even better!
For transparency, I have posted a similar post in the Portugal forum because of the different readership. I do not consider these duplicate posts and I hope the moderators agree. I feel it very important to reach residents of both areas for a balanced comparison of both to decide our ultimate future path.
Thank you so much for anyone willing to offer advice below 🙏

Pulaski

Do either you or your husband have an EU citizenship that will enable you to make the move you are considering?

Also, your husband should be aware that working in another country but for an employer in the UK will likely open up a large can of worms regarding payment of taxes, social charges (NI equiv), and medical insurance in the country he is living in while performing his work. To be clear, it is very unlikely that the country where he lives will allow his lack of contributions to the tax base and medical services to slide just because he has remained on the payroll in the UK, and indeed the likely upshot of this is that he will need to come off the UK payroll and be paid as a contractor, and then pay his own income tax and social charges in the country where he is living and working.

Hodeja

He'd be applying under the fairly new "nomadic visa" category. It's for people working in Spain for an external employer.
I will be posting a separate thread to find out whether people have successfully obtained this new visa type, as an article from mid 2023 said there were still lots of details to be sorted out in it's implementation.
I tried to post the official link on the Spanish government website but I'm blocked from posting web links just now. It's easy to find through a Google search.

1sexsmith

The remote visa will give you 3 years- but I am not sure how many you intend to take. Firstly despite your children being young they will not become bilingual just being in Spain for 3 years and attending Spanish institutions. They would only become bilingual if they live here most of their teenage lives and actively participated in Spanish life. If they return to UK under the age of 10 they will simply forget the Spanish they might have by the time they are teenagers. My son had Swedish and English for the first 5 years of his life- but now at 18 he basically has no Swedish. Secondly as very young children who are going to return to UK putting them in Spanish primary schools where they are going to be taught to read and write in their second language will obviously mean on return to UK they will probably be behind their peers to some degree. That said children do catch up quite quickly if they are academically inclined.
I believe in Catalonia that they will be taught in Catalan for a fair number of classes so obviously that is something to consider. Primary schools are fine in Spain but obviously it depends on the area where you live. However even at primary level there is far more homework and exams than in Scotland. Although this is not a big issue the problem is that parents are expected to assist children with homework and revising for tests so if you don't speak Catalan or Spanish you might need a tutor to assist. My son came at 10 from Scotland and the first few years were very hard for him despite the fact that my then wife spoke Spanish and helped him.

Hodeja

Thank you 🙏. Useful advice.

DLC

Info in English here. Also click on the yellow "Choosing a school in Barcelona" box half-way down because it'll take you to a PDF brochure with more info. Other towns in Catalonia work in a similar way to BCN.

Years are P0-2 (nursery), P3-P5 (infant), 1-6 de Primaria (primary) for ages 0-2, 3-5, and 6-11 respectively. Nursery might be private if there aren't enough public places, especially if you're joining in the middle of a school year. Infant is in theory optional but most children end up going.

Children are taught in Catalan, 2 hours of Spanish a week in Spanish class, and English in English class, depending on the school English could also be taught in other subjects like games and art.

Schools set the amount of homework but even so there's a "tradition" of setting quite a lot. You might find it difficult to help because of the language and may need to pay for a private teacher or after-school classes to help with homework.

Quality of teaching depends often on location (usual thing, inner city schools may not have as good results).

Colegios concertados (State-assisted private schools in the link) charge say about €100/child/month and the education may be slightly better than surrounding state schools but it's not guaranteed. They're often religious schools.

Hodeja

Thank you for your detailed information. Very useful. I find it interesting that you say inner city schools aren't as good. I expected the opposite. Is this due to class sizes being bigger? Thanks again.

Joppa

Possibly, also suburbs tend to be populated by more affluent families with higher expectations.

Hodeja

Agreed. We're looking for something more rural or possibly larger towns, but not in Barcelona itself.

DLC

In Barcelona and other large cities it tends to depend on the neighbourhood more than anything else.

astera

That alone - if you are indeed planning on sending your kids to a public school - should have you steering well clear of Catalonia.

Spain is a big place with plenty od good options to live. But if your kids are going to be attending a public school, then sadly Barcelona/Catalonia is not one of them.

DLC

They same thing would happen in Galicia, the Basque Country, Valencia, or the Balearic Islands so that's a lot a lot of Spain to cross off the list, but in this case they're at an age where they'd pick up both languages quite quickly.

In Barcelona (and Catalonia) it also depends where you are, some neighbourhoods in Barcelona and towns in Catalonia are predominantly Spanish speaking.

astera

In this case skip every place where your kids' education is NOT provided in Spanish but in some regional tongue that is completely useless elsewhere.

There is literally zero point in wasting one's time on local dialects that have no international bearing whatsoever.

1sexsmith

You are permitted to opt out of regional language learning in certain circumstances especially in secondary. My son didn't have to do Valenciano in secondary. Catalonia is different as it is the principle teaching language with Castellano the secondary one- so not good unless you intend to live in Catalonia for most of your child's education.

snikpoh

Wow, where was that? Ours had to do many lessons in Valencian - no option (even though our children didn't mind either way)