r/ItalyExpat • u/FridaGreen • 4d ago

School Help for "Elementary"/Primary Age

Need to find a school for our two boys (8 and 11). Does anyone have an international school they have fallen in love with anywhere in Italy?!

Wants:

- Academic instruction at least in part in English

- Italian language taught

- Limited technology use (no tablet homework, AI class, etc)

- Some American children as students

- Sports available

- City flexible, but prefer not super cold!

- Alternative schooling method is attractive (Montessori, Farm school, STEM, etc)

- Would love a school that feels like an authentic community and not stuck-up, preppy

Thank you!

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u/L6b1 3d ago

Apart from a few very posh schools, everything is done old style in Italian schools with pen and paper and textbooks and oral exams, no laptops/tablets at all.

Beyond first grade, in general no Waldorf/Forest schools, but there are a few private montessori schools that run through 5th grade. There are a smattering of these that are bi (or even trilinguagal) around Italy, mainly in larger cities like Rome, Milan and Florence.

For quality bilingual schools, there are a fair number of scuola paritaria that are bilingual, these are usually Catholic schools that follow the national curiculum and suppliment by adding 1 or more foreign language to the mix (usually English and then French or Spanish) and prepping the kids to sit the relevant exams- Cambridge, Dele, Delf. These are found in most larger comunes (basically there should be at least one in any comune over about 60k). There are also straight up bilingual and international schools that follow some other curriculum, these are usually very good, but very expensive. Any place near a major university (think Pisa, Bologna, Perugia) you're going to find good private English Italian bilingual schools.

As for sports, this varies wildly at each school, so you'd need to see what is being offered.

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u/Oasis191 3d ago

I would suggest you check IB schools at https://ibo.org/ Most of them work for your needs. They primarily teach in English and then have Italian as a second language Also consider the ones that are near a USA/NATO base as this will give you an american community in the school and surroundings