The Valenciano Dilemma: How the Regional Language Affects Public and Concertado Education

TL;DR: The valenciano language requirement in public schools across the Valencia region blindsides almost every newly arrived expat family. Public and concertado schools must teach at least 25% of class hours in Valenciano and at least 25% in Castilian (Spanish), with English layered on top. Under the 2025/26 rules, families now get more say over the language balance than before, but Valenciano is not optional in the public system. Here's what it actually means for your child and how to choose.

Most parents moving to the Comunitat Valenciana assume "Spanish school" means school in Spanish. Then their five-year-old comes home reciting numbers in a language that isn't quite the Castilian on their Duolingo app. Welcome to the valenciano language requirement in public schools in the Valencia region, the single most underestimated factor in choosing where your kids study.

This guide explains the linguistic split across public, concertado and private/international schools, what the current plurilingual law requires, and how to make a clear-eyed decision instead of a panicked one.

The number the register publishes — and the schools it does not cover

Almost nobody tells an arriving family this. The Generalitat publishes, school by school and stage by stage, how much of the week is taught in Valencian, in Spanish and in English. It is public, it comes from the plurilingual programme, and it is the official figure rather than a school’s description of itself.

Two stages of one concertado school in L’Eliana, from the register on 3 September 2026:

Stage	Valencian	Spanish	English
Infantil	26%	65%	26%
Bachillerato	43%	44%	29%

They do not add up to a hundred, and that is a problem rather than a quirk. The language act requires the proportions to cover the whole of curriculum time, and the models in the current law sum to exactly 100 without exception. Across the register as a whole, only about one row in seven does. In infantil and primaria the gap is a point or two, which is rounding. In secondary it runs to tens of points, which is not.

Three more things are worth knowing before anyone leans on this data. It is the school that approves its own figure — under the 2024 act the centre’s own governing body sets it and the administration supervises afterwards, without publishing what it finds. The register’s own footnote calls it the proportion offered by the centre. And the register still labels the field under the 2018 language act, repealed in June 2024 and replaced for every stage from 2025-26.

For Bachillerato it is worse: the Conselleria states in writing that there are no percentages at that stage, and the current law’s models do not cover it. The register publishes Bachillerato percentages anyway. We do not republish those, and neither should you rely on them.

The part that matters more

This figure exists only for público and concertado schools. Private schools sit outside the plurilingual programme, so the register holds nothing for them. We checked every private school we cover — Caxton, the American School of Valencia, Shackleton, Cambridge House, English School Los Olivos, Iale, Mas Camarena, El Plantío, the British School of Valencia, Entrenaranjos and Colegio Helios — and the register returns nothing for a single one of them.

So the schools an English-speaking family looks at first are precisely the ones nobody is obliged to tell them about. A school may call itself bilingual, trilingual or international, and there is no published number behind the word.

Two publish their own figures anyway, and both repay reading. Iale in L’Eliana publishes English falling from around 70% in Infantil to under 30% in Secundaria, and states that its IB Diploma is taught entirely in Spanish except for the English subject itself. Julio Verne in Torrent publishes 100%, 85%, 75% and 68.5% by stage. The rest publish nothing at all.

What to ask, and why it has to be in writing

Ask for the Plan Lingüístico de Centro, by stage. Not “is the school bilingual”, which every school answers yes to. The Plan Lingüístico is a real document with real percentages, and a school that has one can send it.

Ask about the stage your child is entering, not the school as a whole. This is where families lose most: the English hours at three years old and the English hours at fourteen can be forty points apart inside the same school, and the brochure quotes the first.

And if you want to check a school yourself, the register is public. Every school page on this site carries its centre code for exactly that reason.

First, what is Valenciano?

Valenciano is the regional co-official language of the Comunitat Valenciana, linguistically a variety of Catalan, with its own spelling and vocabulary norms. It is not a dialect of Castilian Spanish; it's a separate language. In the public education system it is not merely taught as a subject, it is a language of instruction, meaning maths, science or history may be delivered in Valenciano.

Local reality: How much Valenciano you actually encounter is intensely local. Schools in the city of Valencia and along the coast are often more Castilian-leaning in everyday playground use; schools in inland and smaller-town areas can be heavily Valenciano-speaking, including among the other parents. The legal minimums are the floor, not the ceiling.

The legal framework: what's required in 2025/26

The current model grew out of the regional plurilingual program (the PEPLI framework under Law 4/2018) and was then reshaped by Law 1/2024 on educational freedom, which applies across Infant, Primary, ESO (secondary) and Baccalaureate from the 2025/26 school year.

The core guarantee for public and concertado centres is a minimum balance:

Language	Minimum share of class hours
Valenciano	At least 25%
Castilian (Spanish)	At least 25%
English (foreign language)	Typically ~15-25%

The remaining hours are distributed by the school's language project, and the 2024 reform gives families and communities more influence over how that balance tilts (within the legal minimums) than the previous single-program model did.

Local reality: "At least 25% Valenciano" can in practice be much more, depending on the individual school's proyecto lingüístico (language project) and the historic program it ran. Two public schools in the same district can feel completely different. Before you enrol, ask the school directly: "¿Qué porcentaje de las asignaturas se imparte en valenciano?" and "¿En qué lengua se da matemáticas y ciencias?" Do not rely on the city's general reputation.

How the three systems compare

Public schools

The full requirement applies. Expect a genuine chunk of the curriculum, not only a language class, delivered in Valenciano. State-funded, fast integration, and arguably the best route for young children who absorb both languages effortlessly.

Concertado schools

State-subsidised private schools (often Catholic) are still bound by the same co-official language minimums. Many lean slightly more Castilian in atmosphere, but legally they must hit the Valenciano floor too. Don't assume concertado equals "Spanish-only."

Private / international schools

Here the law works differently: international schools teaching a foreign curriculum (British, American, IB) operate primarily in English, with Castilian Spanish taught as a subject and Valenciano often minimal or optional. This is precisely why expat families pay €6,600-€12,000+ a year, to sidestep the Valenciano-heavy public model. See the full international schools playbook for fees and bus routes.

How to actually make the choice

The Valenciano question usually splits into two honest camps.

Lean into it (public/concertado) if:

• You're staying long-term and want your kids genuinely integrated and bilingual-plus.
• Your children are young (under ~8). They will pick up Valenciano and Castilian without trauma.
• You want to save five figures a year versus international fees.

Sidestep it (private/international) if:

• The move is short-term and curriculum continuity matters more than local integration.
• Your child is an older teen joining mid-secondary, where switching languages of instruction can tank grades during exam years.
• You need an English-medium environment for family reasons.

Local reality: The single most damaging scenario is dropping a 14- or 15-year-old into a heavily Valenciano public secondary right before exams. For young kids it's a superpower; for exam-age teens with no Valenciano, it can be a wall. Match the route to your child's age, not only your budget.

A practical pre-enrolment checklist

• Visit the school and ask for its proyecto lingüístico in writing.
• Confirm the language of instruction for core subjects, not only the headline percentages.
• Talk to other parents at the school gate, the lived reality beats the brochure.
• Cross-reference with your neighbourhood choice; coastal/city barrios and inland towns differ sharply.