Porto · time the metro
Porto is not a suburb of Lisbon. CLIP is Cambridge on Rua de Vila Nova. OBS is British then IB on Rua da Cerca. Same city. Almost no Monday. Ask which paper the child will hold.
Porto is not “the other Lisbon international.” It is a northern city with its own metro, its own colégios, and two English-medium campuses posting families name when the life is not the Cascais train.
The portraits we have are CLIP — Oporto International School on Rua de Vila Nova and Oporto British School on Rua da Cerca. Use them for the clocks that actually decide a Tuesday. CLIP’s 2026/27 page already waitlists most named forms; the public payment policy prints dates and discounts, not a yearly euro table we will invent. OBS prints a full 2026/27 page, including the capital charge. This note is the city between them. The Portugal country page is the wider map — Lisbon’s five climates, TASIS in Quinta da Beloura, São João de Brito.
CLIP sits at Rua de Vila Nova 1071, a twelve-minute walk from Parque Real on Line A. Adapted National Curriculum for England, then Cambridge IGCSE, then A-Levels and the AICE Diploma. It is not an IB continuum. Dukes Education is in the footer family; that is ownership, not a ranking. Time the walk in January, not a June open morning.
OBS sits at Rua da Cerca 338, in Foz, 300 metres from the beach on the school’s own snapshot. British years, then IGCSE, then the IB Diploma. Add the €745 capital charge. Time Foz. It is not Parque Real.
If someone said “the international school in Porto” and meant one paper, ask again. Cambridge and IB are not the same Monday.
If you might stay, an English-medium diploma is not automatically the kindest paper. A Porto colégio with exames nacionais, a head who still knows the grandparents, a yard that speaks Portuguese after lunch — those are official mornings. Families looking at CLIP or OBS often also walk a Portuguese door in the same week, because the next five years may still be Portuguese.
The language of the yard is the test that matters more than the flags. A child can thrive in English at 9 a.m. and still be lonely at 11 if the pastelaria is speaking Portuguese — or the other way around.
Lisbon is not a suburb of Porto. St. Julian’s, St. Dominic’s, CAISL, OIS, United Lisbon, and TASIS Portugal are a different line, a different lanche. Do not flatten Portugal into one coastal train.
If you will leave, ask how universities outside Portugal read IGCSE and AICE, or IGCSE then IB. CLIP’s own profile says most leavers go on to Portuguese and foreign universities, mainly in the United Kingdom. That is the school’s sentence about one pattern, not a promise for this child.
If you will stay, ask how universities here read the Cambridge paper or the IB, and whether extra Portuguese is required.
Housing and the gate have become the same conversation. A beautiful hall forty-five minutes from breakfast is a different childhood from a smaller house you can reach without becoming unkind.
Ask which form still has a chair. Ask what “waitlisted” has meant since the page said it. Ask how much Portuguese a new twelve-year-old meets before Christmas. Ask for this year’s euro table in writing.
Time Parque Real and Rua da Cerca on the same wet Tuesday. Stay for the lanche.
The city hub is the short map. The two portraits are the long ones. The Lisbon field note is the other Portuguese Tuesday.
Friendly orientation, not formal admissions advice. Always confirm dates with the school.
Porto keeps its own time. CLIP is a British-and-Cambridge day house on Rua de Vila Nova, not an IB campus and not a Lisbon commute. The school itself says 2026/27 applicants are being waitlisted. The public payment policy prints dates and discounts, not a yearly euro table we will invent.
PortoPorto’s older British day house on Rua da Cerca, not CLIP on Rua de Vila Nova and not a Cascais commute. The 2026/27 fees page prints euros. Add the capital charge before you compare the two northern Tuesdays.
Linhó, SintraThe official site is caislisbon.org. The campus is in Linhó, in the municipality of Sintra, not in central Lisbon. English is the classroom language. Portuguese is a core subject. The 2026/27 fee schedule is printed in euros, quarterly or yearly.
Barcarena, OeirasA not-for-profit IB continuum on municipal land in Barcarena, not on the Carcavelos sand. From September 2026 the school prints three sites seven minutes apart. The fee table is public. Time the valley, not the postcard.
The letters on the leaver’s certificate matter. They are not the whole child. Here is how to tell them apart without a headache, and without pretending every door stays open.
16 minYou do not need a perfect algorithm. You need a few true things about your child, a boring list on the fridge, and the courage to ignore a beautiful campus that does not fit.
15 minTuition is the number on the homepage. The PDF is the number that arrives in March. Here is how to read the second one, without inventing a euro, a krona, or a deadline.
12 minSkip the question about last year’s average. Ask the ones that make a teacher’s face change. Then look at the corridor while they answer.