Sotogrande International School: Excelling in Learning, Discover World-Class Education Opportunities..

The month of September is synonymous with back to school and the start of the academic year.

Sotogrande has a first class school which is predominantly an International Baccalaureate school. The school does offer a variety of sporting and non academic courses. 

The school was started in 1978 for the children of the then employee of Sotogrande SA. The name of George Moore will always be remembered as the individual who started the school! He was a great financier and his family were very instrumental in the building of Sotogrande with Joe McMicking and the Zobel family.

When I sent my first child to the school in 1995 there were around 250 alumni. The sotogrande international school was based in the original farm house “Paniagua”. A small school following the UK educational system of O and A levels!

However, major changes were coming and in 1998 the Templeton family, Paul and Peter rose to the challenge of buying the school and sowing the seeds of what would become a first class International school.

The school was to move to a brand new location in an area called “La Reserva” in 2001. New modern buildings to cater for over 500 alumni. Educating a child in sotogrande from nursery to IB was now a reality and was to shape the very fabric of Sotogrande living.

Sadly both Paul and Peter, due to ill health, looked to sell the school and enable a major international school network to pick the challenges of educating our children in Sotogrande. The school was sold to the Inspire group in 2018.

Today sotogrande international school is part of a large educational network with over on thousand alumni  from forty five countries. Soon a new boarding house, which will greatly improve boarding at the school.

The changes reflect the growth of Sotogrande and the needs of families now looking for perhaps not a primary residence but as I say: A one and half resident. Not primary or secondary but somewhere in the middle!

My personal experience with Sotogrande International School

On a personal note I had the privilege to sit on the board of the school from 1998 until 2018. I was to put my eldest son through the primary school and as was tradition in my family onto Harrow school in the Uk. At the time in 1998, we were not sure how the school would evolve for a first class secondary education.

However by the time our daughter came of age and our second son we were then convinced of the future of the school and decided to keep them on at the school until the end and that they would be the first generation to sit the international baccalaureate.

This was to prove an excellent decision and not only did we have our daughter and son at home until the age of 18, but they were to receive a magnificent broad based international education and as a bonus speak various languages.

The fear of not getting them into a first class university was to prove unfounded. My daughter was to gain a place at the famous Imperial College, London to read biomedicine. Now, at 28 years of age, a PHD Doctor of Bio medicine and with a successful career in research at Imperial.

My son was also accepted into Imperial but wisely opted for Edinburgh with a year at Berkeley university San Francisco to read physics. Their friends have been accepted to Oxford and other Iveagh league universities around the world.

We never imagined back in 1995 that it would be possible for the children of the Sotogrande International school to gain places in some of the leading universities of the world.

However, it is important to mention that the school offers numerous opportunities for those children that have no major interest in a purely academic career. They can opt for a golf or tennis scholarship. They can do music and the arts. The opportunity for a child to thrive at what they do best is endless.

The staff of the school are truly dedicated to their jobs and offer a wide variety of extra curriculum activities. 

If you are thinking of relocating to Sotogrande but are concerned about your children’s education; don’t be! I urge you to investigate the multiple opportunities Sotogrande International School has to offer.

I suspect soon we will need more space in Sotogrande to educate our finest assets: our children.