SEK International Schools

About SEK-El Castillo

Learn about our international IB World boarding school which is also NEASC accredited to offer the American high school diploma track. 

SEK-El Castillo is more than just a private school

Everything we do is about fostering students’ intellectual, emotional and personal development; supporting them to become questioning and courageous individuals with an international perspective fit for the 21st century.  

Located in an exclusive and safe setting, SEK-El Castillo boasts a beautiful natural backdrop of mountains and forest and is just 20 minutes from downtown Madrid. The school is outfitted with the latest technology in teaching and learning, with the best, evidence-based practices in IB private school education. Moreover, next door is Camilo José Cela University with whom our students are often encouraged to collaborate on projects and learning beyond the classroom.

SEK-El Castillo was founded in 1972, and since then tens of thousands of students have been taught by its international teaching team. The school offers next-generation learning technology, the chance to live on campus in the boarding house, and an education programme meeting SEK Schools' rigorous quality standards. SEK-El Castillo has an elite International Sports Academy for high performance athletes, a music baccalaurate programme, and is accredited by NEASC to provide the American High School Diploma track.

It gives us great pleasure to welcome you to SEK International School El Castillo and to the new 22-23 school year.

Since 1972, SEK-El Castillo has offered an exceptional education, based on innovation, professional development and the will to always undertake new and interesting projects. We trust that this will be the beginning of a lasting relationship, where we will learn from each other and where together we will collaborate to carry out our mission of educating balanced and open-minded international students, with a solid holistic preparation to face the challenges of the 21st century.

In a world that evolves at a dizzying pace, which is increasingly interrelated, we have the responsibility, as a leading school, to be capacity to constantly update and adapt. This is our goal, because we know that the school stage is the foundation on which the lives of our students are based and that is why we tackle this great challenge with enthusiasm.

A diverse community of over fifty nationalities is proud to call SEK International El Castillo its home. The school is welcoming and supportive, allowing international students and families a successful transition to their new environment.

Accredited by the most important international organisations in education such as the International Baccalaureate and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, SEK-El Castillo is recognised for its dedication to academic excellence and for offering well-developed programmes in sport, art, community service and applied learning.

Our caring and passionate faculty deliver a superior IB international curriculum and pioneering programmes that guide students to success in life.

The rigorous and holistic education offered at SEK-El Castillo prepares our graduates for the best universities in the world. Whether they are juniors or soon to graduate, our students are empowered to apply their learning to real-life challenges.

Using an applied learning approach, purpose-built spaces, and age-appropriate integration of technology, our faculty provide authentic learning experiences that engage students in relevant and impactful ways.

As an international school, it is also a priority for us to develop an educational system that is characterised by the freedom to decide, design and implement the solutions that we consider to be the best for the different challenges posed by society.

We also enthusiastically welcome this great academic year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SEK International School El Castillo with the desire, passion and enthusiasm to celebrate and share with you all our outstanding results and for these fifty years to be an example to continue growing and achieving the best of success in terms of the excellence and quality of our educational project.

SEK-El Castillo is proud of its innovative history, having been founded by Felipe Segovia in 1972 to play an important role in Spanish education from its inception. Today SEK-El Castillo offers the Dual Diploma, an official international Baccalaureate qualification programme that allows students to obtain two simultaneous qualifications, the Spanish Bachillerato and / or the Diploma Programme and the American High School Diploma. The School of Music and Dance, launched last year to great acclaim and allows students to pursue an Arts Baccalaureate.

The school welcomes local day students and international students to whom is offered Boarding on campus. 

The school is part of SEK Education Group, which has an extensive history, offering an education programme meeting SEK Schools' rigorous quality standards since 1892.

Our Group is rooted in a hundred-year family tradition of freedom and autonomy, free from any religious, political or financial ties. Our only commitment is the development of quality education in line with our ethos, values and education principles.

In order to meet this commitment, we implement our own unique educational system, developing every aspect of individual student’s personalities at each stage of their evolution, with the tried-and-tested expertise of our teaching staff, first-class facilities, educational resources, innovative technology and specially designed school environments, organisation and services.

Pioneers since 1892, the SEK Group is proud of its history which today boasts 10 international Schools in Spain, France, Ireland, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Camilo José Cela University was established in the year 2000 to foster teaching research and innovation. 

Ethos, Mission, and Values

Our ethos, mission, and values reflect the idea from the 1st SEK Convention, 1969:

“SEK places individual freedom above all else”

ETHOS

asure of the life and education at the SEK Group: it respects them as individuals, strives to awaken their abilities and to ensure they fully realise their potential as individuals.

• II. SEK Education Group believes in educating in freedom for freedom. SEK accepts the challenge implied by this, and encourages students to accept responsibility for their own actions.
• III. It aims to respect the pluralistic values of its students (individual, historical, cultural and religious values).
• IV. It encourages the principals of universal solidarity in its teaching staff and students. It values work, an essential factor in personal worth and advancement, as an aspect of sociability, not in terms of rivalry and ambition.
• V. SEK Education Group is open to the world and the age we live in, it is open to innovations in educational quality and to those teaching and cultural bodies that share its aspiration of creating a more cultured society and bettering humanity as a whole.

MISSION

Our mission is to help students become proactive global citizens by providing learning experiences which focus on concept based inquiry and reflection thus helping them develop intellectually and emotionally, while acquiring a lifelong passion for learning.

VALUES

These are the values that guide our teaching activity and that we encourage in the classroom:

• Biological: physical and mental health.

  Our Ethos is a framework for all the SEK Educational Community and reflects the Group’s unique nature. Drafted almost half a century ago, its spirit remains unchanged.

  SEK Education Group is ‘at the service of the common human spirit of achievement, striving for a better society’ and is founded on the following principals:

• I. Students and their world are the me
• Ethical conduct: personally and towards others
• Aesthetics: raising awareness, good taste and creativity. Respecting diversity: respecting other ways of being, thinking and acting.
• Universal coexistence: justice, peace and solidarity
• Intellectual: wisdom, logical rigour and discipline
• Work: as a means to personal realisation and dignity
• Truth: adapting thinking to reality
• Freedom: a supreme ideal and tied to responsibility.
• Personality: behavioural standards, knowing how to be, how to act and to behave
• Metaphysical: open to transcendent values