About us

The first IB World Schools in Spain
that has German as a teaching language!

Zürich Schule Barcelona (ZSB) is an endorsed and certified IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) and IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) school.

IB World Schools have a common philosophy based on a commitment to improving teaching and learning in educational communities characterised by diversity and inclusion. They impart high-quality international teaching programmes that share a powerful vision.

IB declaration of principles:


More information on the International Baccalaureate® (IB

Growing together for over fifty years

Zürich Schule Barcelona is a lay private school that caters for Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education to help its students grow intellectually, emotionally and physically. It prioritises people and interpersonal relationships, fostering the sense of belonging, the participation and the involvement of the entire educational community in its project.

Given that family satisfaction with the quality of teaching is one of the Zürich Schule Barcelona’s aspirations, our Education Project must needs be dynamic. This means that its content is an object of permanent study and reflection.

Our collaborators

We collaborate with a range of companies and institutions that enhance our values and enable us to advance our vision day by day.

The Zürich Schule story

They were just married; he had completed his studies in engineering, and she was beginning to say her first few words in Spanish during the last years of the Franco regime, when Spain was very different to the world around them.

He was teaching engineers but, dissatisfied with master classes full of rhetorical excellence delivered at the blackboard and with impersonal teacher-pupil relationships, he soon decided to pursue other professional paths. The couple resolved to set out on a new adventure …

Full of hope, they began to leaf through all sorts of publications, underlining, cutting out, making phone calls and appointments with property owners, but all the offers were beyond their reach.

Several weeks later, they found a property on the corner of Calle Convenio and Calle Florida, where the Colegio Zürich would be founded. In precarious conditions, the couple taught small groups of students. Demand was very low. Not losing faith, they did their utmost, day after day, week after week, striving to fulfil their dream of having a better equipped building. A few years later they left the premises in the inner city and moved to 2, Calle Ifni, completely different socio-economic surroundings. The school’s internal structure began to be more clearly defined and the number of students steadily grew, but the couple’s aspirations had not yet been fulfilled: they were short of space.

A few more years would pass before they decided to take the plunge and opened a new education centre on Calle Rocabert, behind San Juan de Dios Hospital. The administrative and management services remained on Calle Ifni, along with the nursery school, while the higher courses were imparted in the new centre. But they soon realised that the new building didn’t meet all their requirements and some years later they made another decisive move, this time to 73, Avenida Pearson.

The present school is the fruit of all those years of struggle, the passion and pain of a couple who have lived for teaching. Always striving to meet society’s demands, the school was restructured on a number of occasions and eventually became a TEACHING ORGANISATION. Let’s see how this long story continues to unfold. Will any of the couple’s three children have the pride and the honour of furthering their ‘work’ along the same lines?

Alejandro Macías Roth (1969-1993)
Article written for the 1993 edition of SPICKLE (former school magazine)

What does it mean for Zürich Schule Barcelona (ZSB) to belong to the community of IB World Schools?

‘A profession is created not by certificates and censures but by the existence of a substantive body of professional knowledge, as well as a mechanism for improving it, and by a genuine desire of the profession’s members to improve their practice.’ Stigler and Hiebert, The Teaching Gap, 1999.

We live in a society characterised by constant change. The importance of technology in today’s world helps us understand students of the twenty-first century. They are a part of this change, to which schools must adapt if they are to make sense of their surroundings.

Most of us were educated following a traditional teaching model, often based on behaviourism, that told us what we had to do and how to do it. This model left little room for improvisation, imagination or creativity. At Zürich Schule Barcelona we’ve been supporting constructivism in teaching for more than fifty years and we’ve always defended our methodology. It’s not a question of erasing everything that’s been done so far, but to be continuously revising and improving it.

We recognise the new physical, intellectual, social and cultural needs of students, which we try to meet in order to offer them an interesting, relevant, stimulating and meaningful learning experience. Our education model is evolving, and this new learning experience is achieved thanks to the transdisciplinary programme endorsed by the IB, based on issues of global importance that transcend traditional areas of learning, providing a common framework throughout the primary and secondary levels of education. Students should thus be able to establish connections between life at school, at home and, broadly speaking, in a global and diverse world.

Students must explore a series of themes that represent shared human experiences we call Key Common Aspects.

The six transdisciplinary themes on which the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) is based study and analyse these common aspects, and refer to the concepts and skills of traditional teaching areas explored in a way that transcends disciplines, becoming a transdisciplinary process of teaching and learning. PYP students are taught to take charge of their own learning, and their teachers help increase their motivation and self-confidence.

The way in which teachers organise new experiences and support students' ideas on these new experiences is essential in knowledge acquisition, comprehension skills and concept formation. Teachers must help students grasp abstract concepts, establish connections between these and develop conceptual thinking.

Development and learning are thus interrelated in the curricular framework of the programme in order to transcend each disciplinary area.

During its process of accreditation as an IB school, ZSB must revise its policies concerning educational integrity, assessment, languages, special needs and the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). This knowledge must be shared with the entire learning community.

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) is a non-profit organisation. It has no shareholders and its profits are reinvested in its activity to continue an innovative education process with an international outlook based on thinking skills, research, communication, self-management and tolerant empathetic relationships.This extraordinary effort is rewarded by the educational results of Spanish baccalaureate graduates who have followed the IB methodology. Focusing as we do on the personal abilities of each individual student means that Zürich Schule Barcelona teachers work around the clock to broaden their own training.

The IB Organization was originally founded in response to the lack of flexibility of different schooling systems around the world. Today, the IB education system is recognised by over one hundred countries, and a number of key universities in the United Kingdom and America warmly welcome students holding IB diplomas. IB schools strongly believe that the former narrow world of limited specialised learning processes is no longer valid.

Many universities worldwide follow this line of thinking, and a growing number of them are revising their admission criteria in order to attract more IB graduates.

Any questions?

Do you need further information? We’re here to help! If you should have any questions about our school, educational approach, school programmes, admission requirements or any other matter, don’t hesitate in getting in touch.

Our staff are committed to providing you with answers and guidance to ensure you make the best possible decision regarding your child’s education. We look forward to meeting you and sharing this educational journey!

What impression do we make?

Germano Guggino

'This school has high academic standards and children receive warm responsive attention. Multiculturalism is the norm. Teaching and administrative staff are always available and happy to solve problems.'

Juliana Pometti

'We are more than happy with the Zürich school. Our son has adapted very well and has enjoyed the support and understanding of the entire teaching staff.'

Pablo Mena

'We're very grateful to the school — our son learnt a lot, made friends, and we returned to Ecuador very pleased with how our needs were met. We thank the whole school for having been so good with Julián.'

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