🇪🇸 Valencia · Schools
Schooling and childcare in Valencia
State and concertado places across the Comunitat Valenciana are allocated in one region-wide online window in May, and there is no paper route in the ordinary phase.
The thing people get wrongConcertado schools are not a way round the deadline: they use the same Conselleria process and the same May window as fully state schools. Arrive over the summer and you are left with the fase extraordinaria and whatever vacancies remain, which usually means no choice of school at all.
The one window
Admission to every school funded from the public purse, state and concertado alike, runs through a single telematic process on the Conselleria's portal at adminova.gva.es. In the 2026-27 cycle the ordinary phase ran from 7 to 18 May for Infantil and Primaria, and from 21 May to 1 June for ESO and Bachillerato. Applications are filed only online in the ordinary phase. Dates for the following year come in a resolution of the Dirección General de Centros Docentes issued in February, so check them then rather than assume the same days.
The rest of the calendar
In the 2026-27 cycle provisional lists came out on 4 June for Infantil and Primaria and on 15 June for ESO, with definitive lists on 18 June and 2 July. Enrolment followed telematically from 18 to 29 June for Infantil and Primaria, in person until 2 July, and from 2 to 7 July for ESO, in person until 8 July. Expect the same shape next year with the dates shifted. If you are relocating for September, the whole sequence is over before most people have signed a lease.
Which language your child is taught in
The dual linguistic line was restored from the 2025-26 year under the Valencian law on educational freedom: families choose a base language, Valencian or Spanish, and municipalities are classified as Valencian-speaking or Spanish-speaking zones. A pupil arriving from another region or another country and enrolling for the first time may request exemption from being assessed in Valencian for the year they arrive and the year immediately after, with the school providing an adaptation in the subject from then on. In Spanish-speaking municipalities that exemption can be permanent; in Valencian-speaking ones, which include the city of Valencia, it runs for at most three consecutive years. Pupils may also sit assessments in either language in non-linguistic subjects.
Arriving out of season
Miss May and the state route is the fase extraordinaria against leftover vacancies, which allocates what is free rather than what you wanted. International schools are the alternative because they admit on their own timetable, outside the Generalitat calendar entirely. Fees and entry charges vary widely and the numbers circulating on comparison sites are not reliable, so ask each school for its current schedule including registration and capital fees. Ask at the same time how early the year group you need tends to fill, because the better-known schools do not wait for the regional calendar either.
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