British Schools in Athens: Campion, St. Catherine's and the English Curriculum Options (2026)

For families relocating to Athens from the UK, Australia, South Africa, or anywhere that uses English-medium education, the British curriculum schools are typically the first port of call. Athens has two well-established options — Campion School and St. Catherine's British School — together with Athens College, a bilingual institution whose English stream gives it a natural place in this conversation.

Campion School Athens

Founded in 1970, Campion School is the most established British international school in Athens and among the most well-known in southeastern Europe. It is located in Pallini, in the eastern suburbs of Athens, roughly 18 km from the city centre and close to Athens International Airport.

Curriculum and qualifications: Campion follows the English National Curriculum from Year 1 through Year 9. At Year 10, students begin the Cambridge IGCSE programme (two years, typically nine to eleven subjects). At Years 12–13, Campion offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma — the school replaced its A-Level programme with the IB Diploma in 2002 — a broad, internationally recognised sixth-form qualification accepted by universities worldwide.

Size and community: The school has a mixed international community. Families from the UK, the US, EU member states, and the wider Anglophone world are all represented. The school has sports facilities, a performing arts programme, and a broad co-curricular offer.

Accreditation: Campion is accredited under the British Schools Overseas (BSO) framework, the UK government's quality assurance standard for British schools abroad.

2025–2026 Fees:

A 5% discount applies for full payment by 31 July 2025. There is a 20% sibling discount on fees for a third or subsequent child from the same family attending concurrently.

Location note: Pallini is not a central Athens neighbourhood. Most families living in the northern suburbs (Kifisia, Ekali) or southern suburbs (Glyfada, Voula) will rely on the school bus network. For the school bus zones and commute times, contact the school directly.

See best areas in Athens near international schools for neighbourhood guidance.

St. Catherine's British School Athens

St. Catherine's British School (known locally as St. Catherine's or SCBS) is located in Lykovrissi, in the northern suburbs of Athens. It is an accredited British School Overseas (BSO), an IB World School, and a member of the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). The school takes children from Nursery (age 3) through to Year 13.

Curriculum and qualifications: St. Catherine's follows the National Curriculum of England and Wales through to IGCSE (Year 10 and 11). Post-16, the school offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme rather than A-Levels — a point worth noting if your child's university pathway calls specifically for A-Level grades (most UK universities accept the IB equally, but some specialist programmes, particularly in medicine, may specify grade requirements in IBDP terms).

Size: The school serves well over 1,000 pupils. It is a sizeable British school by international standards — large enough to offer a full subject range while maintaining a strong community feel.

2025–2026 Fees:

Additional fees on enrolment include: a non-refundable application fee (€150), a registration fee (€1,000), a development fund contribution (€1,500 for Nursery–Year 10; €500 for Years 11–13), and an annual reservation deposit (€2,000, non-refundable). Sibling discounts of 2.5% to 10% apply depending on the number of children enrolled.

Athens College and Psychico College (HAEF)

Athens College and its sister institution Psychico College are operated by the Hellenic-American Educational Foundation (HAEF), founded in 1925. They are not British schools in the strict sense — instruction combines Greek and English — but they are included here because many expat families consider them, particularly those who intend to remain in Greece long-term or who want their children to become genuinely bilingual.

The schools are regarded as among the most academically prestigious in Greece. Entrance is by competitive examination held each March. Competition for places — particularly at the Junior High (Grade 7 entry) level — is intense, and the schools maintain waiting lists. The Psychico campus houses the Junior High, High School, and IB Diploma programme; the Kantza campus houses two Elementary Schools.

The IB Diploma is available at the Psychico campus, providing a recognised international qualification at the end of secondary study. French is also taught across all grades.

For detailed fee information, contact the HAEF admissions office directly; annual tuition is competitive with the British schools above, with a one-time initial enrolment fee of €500.

See IB schools in Athens and waiting lists for more on HAEF admissions.

Comparing the British Options

Choosing the Right School

Choose Campion if your child is UK-curriculum educated through IGCSE, you are comfortable with the IB Diploma at sixth form, and the Pallini location or school bus works for you.

Choose St. Catherine's if you want a northern-suburbs location closer to Kifisia and Marousi, your child is entering at a younger year group, or you prefer a school running the British curriculum through IGCSE before the IB Diploma post-16.

Consider Athens College/Psychico College if you plan to remain in Greece for several years, value bilingual education, and are willing to compete for a place through the entrance examination process.

For families at primary age who have more flexibility, primary schools in Athens for expats covers all the early-years and primary options in more depth.

Location Is the Decision Most Families Actually Make

The comparison table above shows the two British schools offering the same post-16 qualification at broadly similar fee levels. Once curriculum stops being a differentiator, geography becomes the decision — and it is a bigger one than it looks, because in Athens the school effectively selects the neighbourhoods you can live in.

Pallini sits in the eastern suburbs; Lykovrissi in the north. A family that chooses one and then buys or rents in the catchment of the other has committed a child to a daily journey for the length of their schooling. Before deciding, do two things. Drive or ride the route at the time of day the child would actually travel, in both directions, rather than at a quiet hour on a viewing trip. And ask the school for the bus zones and the realistic door-to-door times from the specific areas you are considering, including the later return after co-curricular activities, which is the journey that shapes the evening.

A shorter commute buys a teenager time, sleep and the ability to stay for activities and see friends outside school hours. It usually costs more in housing. Which way that balance falls is a family decision, but it should be made deliberately rather than discovered in October.

For neighbourhood detail, see best areas in Athens near international schools.

Choosing a Bilingual School Is a Longer Commitment

Choosing between Campion and St. Catherine's is a choice between two versions of the same thing. Adding HAEF to the shortlist is not; it is a choice about how long you intend to stay in Greece.

An English-medium British school is designed to be entered and left. A child can arrive from the UK, spend some years in Athens and continue elsewhere with the curriculum largely intact. A bilingual education is designed to embed a child in a place. That is its strength — genuine language acquisition and real integration into Greek life are things international schooling rarely delivers — but it works in one direction. A child who spends several years in a Greek-English environment and then moves to a third country carries a language they may not use again and may have less of the specific curriculum continuity that a subsequent international school will expect.

So the question is not whether bilingual education is better. It is how confident the family is about staying. Where a move to Greece is genuinely long-term — a residency plan, a business, family roots — the case is strong. Where the horizon is a posting of uncertain length, the portability of the English-medium route usually matters more.

There is also a practical consequence of selective entry: a competitive examination held once a year means a family whose child is not offered a place has to have a second plan already in motion, and cannot simply reapply next term. Run the applications in parallel rather than in sequence.

What Accreditation Tells You, and What It Does Not

Both British schools here hold accreditation under the British Schools Overseas framework, and the schools reasonably make a feature of it. It is worth understanding what a family should take from that.

Accreditation means the school has been inspected against a defined external standard rather than assessed only by itself, and it gives a parent something more solid than a prospectus. What it does not do is tell you whether a particular school is right for a particular child. Inspection judges provision; families are choosing a community, a set of teachers, a subject offer in a specific year, and a daily routine. Use accreditation as a floor — a reason to take a school seriously — and then do the work that no external standard can do for you.

Questions Worth Asking on a School Visit

• Which subjects have actually run at each level in recent years, and what minimum cohort size does the school need for a course to go ahead?
• How many pupils typically join and leave each year group, and how are new arrivals supported socially as well as academically?
• What proportion of teaching staff have been at the school for several years, and what is the turnover in the subjects my child cares about?
• What learning support, English-language support or Greek-language support exists, is it capped, and is it charged separately?
• What does the school do for a child who arrives mid-year, and which year groups currently have space?
• How is university guidance staffed, when does it begin, and does it extend beyond UK applications?
• May I speak to a parent whose child joined from a similar background to ours, at a similar age?

That last request is worth pressing. Two of the answers above — subject viability and staff turnover — are things a school reports on its own behalf, and a parent two years into the same journey will tell you how they played out in practice. Ask specifically for a family who arrived from your system rather than any family, because the useful detail is in the transition, not in the school at rest.

How Global Investments Can Help

Our team advises expat families on property in Greece across the Athens area, including neighbourhoods that offer convenient access to Campion, St. Catherine's, and the HAEF campuses. If you are also exploring Greece's Golden Visa residency programme, we can discuss how the property investment and the school decision align. View current listings or speak to us about your family's requirements.

This guide is for information purposes only. Fees and admissions criteria are subject to change; verify current details directly with each school. Property investment values can fall as well as rise.