Portugal · Porto

CLIP, Porto’s British-and-Cambridge house that is not the Cascais line

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.

dagschoolgemengdOnderzocht 1-9-2026

Officiële website Porto Portugal gids

Dit portret staat nog in het Engels. De andere talen komen school voor school.

Curriculum zoals de school het publiceert:National Curriculum for England (adapted) · Cambridge IGCSE · Cambridge A-Levels / AICE Diploma

Onderwijstalen:English

CLIP — Oporto International School is a co-educational English-medium day school at Rua de Vila Nova, 1071, 4100-506 Porto. Official site clip.pt. Switchboard +351 22 619 9160. Admissions: admissions@clip.pt. The contacts page also names the academics office +351 226 199 175 / 176, and office hours Monday to Friday, 07:45–17:30. GPS the same page prints: 41.173632 / –8.671184. Metro: 12 minutes on foot from Parque Real on Line A.

It is Porto, not the Cascais train. It is not Oporto British School on Rua da Cerca — that house prints IGCSE then IB. It is not St. Julian’s, not CAISL, not TASIS Portugal, and not United Lisbon. Same country. Almost no Monday.

It is a day school. There is no boarding house.

The welcoming page names Isabel Morgado as Head, Francisco Marques as CEO, Andrea Vasconcelos as Lower School Director, Edwin Hendrikus Kolen as Middle School Director, and Ana Isabel Marques Guedes as Upper School Director.

The school sits in the Dukes Education family. The official Dukes page is the school’s own telling. That is ownership weather, not a ranking. United Lisbon is another Dukes door in the same country. Do not paste one lobby onto the other.

The useful questions are: Do you want a British-and-Cambridge week in Porto — adapted National Curriculum for England, then IGCSE, then A-Levels / AICE — rather than an IB continuum on the Lisbon line? Can you live with Rua de Vila Nova in January? And have you opened this year’s tuition sheet — because the public payment policy prints dates and discounts, not a yearly euro table we will invent.

Who it is for

Families whose life is the north. The profile page’s own snapshot: 1,226 students, 56 nationalities, 250 staff, a teacher–student ratio the school prints as 1:6. Treat those as the school’s sentences, not a census we counted.

CLIP calls itself non-selective and also says every candidate is interviewed and assessed if a place is available. Non-selective is not automatic. English is the language of instruction in every year group. EAL support is named. Accessing the curriculum “within a reasonable time” is the school’s own admissions sentence.

It will not suit a family hunting a full IB continuum, or a Portuguese colégio with exames nacionais as the only paper. Walk those doors if that is the climate.

The admissions page, when we opened it, said 2026/27 applications for Pre-K through Form 9 and Form 11 are open, and that applicants are being waitlisted. That is the school’s sentence. We will not invent how long the list is, or whether this form still has a chair.

The campus you can actually picture

Rua de Vila Nova, in Porto, not Foz as a postcard and not the Baixa as a tourist Tuesday. The profile says the present premises were inaugurated in 2002–2003, after earlier houses near Castelo do Queijo, then EFANOR, then Praça Coronel Pacheco. A sciences block opened in 2016–2017. We will not invent a hectare count.

Time the walk from Parque Real at 7:40 in January. Bus 501 and 205 are named. The lanche is still the honest tour.

Portuguese is not the classroom language. Ask how much Portuguese a new twelve-year-old actually meets before Christmas. Do not assume a colégio yard.

How the years are organised

Pre-K through Form 12. The profile says the curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England, adapted for Porto. The Upper School page splits the last four years:

Forms 9 and 10 — Cambridge IGCSE
Forms 11 and 12 — Cambridge A-Levels and the AICE Diploma

AICE, the school says, needs seven credits over 25 months, including a compulsory Global Perspectives credit. Subjects sit in three groups: Mathematics and Sciences; Languages; Arts and Humanities. Each AS is one credit; a full A-Level is two. Exam sessions named: October/November and May/June.

CLIP does not print an IB continuum. If someone said “the international school in Porto” and meant IB, ask again.

The admissions page will not take new students into Form 10 or Form 12, because those years sit at the end of the IGCSE and A-Level cycles.

How a child actually gets in

Application form for 2026/27, with ID or passport, the latest school report, and specialist reports if they exist.
A non-refundable pre-registration fee. Paying it does not guarantee a place. Re-applicants do not pay it again.
CLIP writes to the current school for a reference.
If a place is available: interview and assessment by the relevant Director.
Preference: siblings and children of alumni. Others, the school says, are first-come, first-served, subject to the procedures above.

2026/27 is open and waitlisted for the forms the page names. 2027/28 for Pre-K (born 2024), Reception (born 2022), and Form 5 opens September–November 2026 — exact date not yet announced. Other 2027/28 forms open February–April 2027. Applications for 2028/29 and beyond are closed.

Visits are booked on the school’s platform. Access to the campus is restricted. There is a virtual tour. Write to admissions@clip.pt.

Money, as the policy prints it — and what it does not

The admissions page hosts a CLIP Tuition & Fees 2026–2027 download. The July 2025 School Fee Payment Policy does not print grade-by-grade euros. We will not invent them. Open the live sheet before you fall in love with the lobby.

What the payment policy does print (reviewed July 2025):

Item	What the policy says
Monthly tuition	Due by the 5th business day of each month
Trimester	5 September, 5 December, 5 March — 2% discount
Annual	Due 5 September — 4% discount
Second child	6% off the 10-month tuition structure
Third child and after	15% per child
Pre-registration	Non-refundable; does not guarantee a place
On acceptance	Acceptance fee (non-refundable), annual registration (non-refundable), refundable deposit/guarantee
Deposit refund	Full refund if written withdrawal at least 60 days ahead
Late fees	5% penalty, then 1% interest per month
Aftercare	Until 18:30, with a 15-minute grace
Cambridge exams	Billed separately
Lunch	Booked on the school platform; same-day is more expensive; cancel before 09:00

Student accident insurance is included in the annual registration fee. Full fees are payable for the final term of enrolment. No refunds for absences.

What we are not claiming

We are not ranking CLIP against St. Julian’s or a Porto colégio. We are not inventing 2026–27 tuition. We are not calling Dukes a quality medal. We are not inventing how long the waitlist is. We are not calling this an IB school.

Stairs questions

Ask for this year’s euro table in writing. Ask which form still has a chair, and what “waitlisted” has meant for families like yours. Ask how much Portuguese remains after lunch. Ask whether this child is being placed toward AICE or a smaller A-Level package, and what universities you care about do with each paper.

Time Rua de Vila Nova on a wet Tuesday. Then walk a Portuguese courtyard in the same week. The lanche is still the honest tour.

The Porto hub is the short map. The Portugal country page is the wider one — Lisbon’s five climates, TASIS in Beloura, São João de Brito.