When you are moving your family abroad, one concern that may come to your mind is education. Registering your children for school overseas can be complex if they are not a national of the country in question. What documents should you have prepared, and what processes will they need? How do you get your documents legalised? We’ll cover some of the key points in this article.
In Spain, the local authorities, Comunidades Autónomas, are responsible for primary and secondary education. This is the authority that you must contact in order to register your child for a state school. If your family is not fluent in the language, you may instead choose to enrol your child in an international school. International schools can be fully private or state-subsidised. In either case, certain documentation will be required. You will need to get your documents legalised before your child can be enrolled.
Document Preparation
You can prepare some of these documents in advance of your move, to save you time and stress upon arrival. These will vary depending on the local authority, but generally include:
– Birth certificate, original and copy
– Passport (child and parents), original and copy
– Medical records (including proof of immunisation)
– Academic records
In light of Brexit, some of these documents will need apostilles for use in Spain. This is because the EU’s Regulation of Public Documents, which negated the need for legalisation when using an EU document in another EU country, no longer applies to the UK.
Both original and certified duplicate birth certificates can be apostilled. An original passport cannot be apostilled, but a copy which has been certified by a solicitor or notary can be.
A medical doctor registered with the General Medical Council must sign your child’s medical report. The report will likely include a statement of general fitness and proof of immunisation history . If it does not meet these requirements, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) may still accept it for an Apostille if a notary public or solicitor certifies it.
Educational Equivalency
You will also need your child’s academic records, including any exam certificates they have obtained. Generally, these types of documents need to be certified by a solicitor. For Spain, any academic documents submitted before November 1st, 2021, for non-university study will not require an Apostille [1]. They will, however, require a different process of verification, called homologation (homologación). The Spanish Embassy in London can complete this process. So can the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional) in Spain, if you are already abroad.
If these documents are submitted after November 1st, 2021, they will need to be apostilled before they are submitted for homologation.
The local authorities in Spain will also ask for translations of these documents into Spanish, provided by a qualified translator.
Speeding up the Process
This list of documents may seem overwhelming, especially given that some of them will require multi-step processes. That’s why we are here to help. At Pardus Bloom, we can manage the full process of document legalisation for you. Our network of professionals means that we can oversee everything, right from the initial certification by a solicitor to legalisation by the FCDO and translation as required, saving you the hassle of going through all of these steps on your own.
When it comes to something as important as your child’s education, we know how vital it is to avoid delays. That’s why we offer a quick turn-around with our express service – provided you drop your documents off with us by 11 AM, we can have them back to you the same afternoon. You can get your documents legalised in good time and focus on what’s important.
[1] ‘No se requerirá la apostilla del Convenio de La Haya para las solicitudes de homologación y convalidación de estudios no universitarios que hubieran sido presentadas antes del 1 de noviembre de 2021.‘ Source : https://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/dam/jcr:97d70be0-dd68-4946-a549-f2427fb68a4c/nota-informativa-prorroga-no-lega.pdf