This summer marks ten years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. For those of us working in British international education abroad, the referendum result in June 2016 landed with a particular kind of uncertainty. What would it mean for schools like ours, built on a British curriculum but rooted firmly in Spanish soil? Would families still choose a British education for their children once the UK’s relationship with Europe had fundamentally changed?
A decade later, the answer at the International School of Madrid is unambiguous: yes, and more than ever.
A decade of uncertainty, met with stability
When Brexit was confirmed, schools like ISM faced genuine questions. Staffing was an obvious concern: would it become harder to recruit British-trained teachers to work in Spain? Would the administrative weight of visas, residency, and qualifications recognition make it more difficult to maintain the quality of teaching that families expected? As El País points out, beyond staffing, there were quieter worries too such as would the British curriculum itself lose some of its appeal once Britain was no longer part of the European project that so many international families in Madrid were themselves navigating?
What we found, across ten years, was that these anxieties, while reasonable at the time, underestimated something important: the enduring strength of what a British education actually offers, independent of the UK’s political relationship with the continent.
Why families have stayed the course
Parents at ISM do not choose a British curriculum because of the UK’s trade arrangements or its seat in Brussels. They choose it for the same reasons families have always chosen it: rigorous academic standards, the breadth and flexibility of pathways like IGCSEs and A-Levels, a pastoral tradition that takes the whole child seriously, and a framework that travels well, opening doors to universities across the world rather than in any single country.
If anything, the past decade has sharpened that appeal. As the world has grown more mobile and more uncertain in other ways: a pandemic, shifting economic tides, families relocating for work more frequently than ever, the portability and international recognition of a British education has become more valuable, not less. Parents making decisions for their children’s futures are, understandably, drawn to qualifications and pedagogical approaches with a long track record of opening doors, wherever those doors might be.
Adapting without losing what matters
None of this is to say the last ten years have been without real work. Like every British school operating outside the UK, ISM has had to think carefully about recruitment, about staying closely connected to curriculum developments and examination standards in the UK, and about ensuring our teaching staff continue to feel part of a wider professional community despite new administrative realities. As a family-owned school, we have had the flexibility to respond to these challenges directly and personally, rather than through layers of bureaucracy, something that has, if anything, made us more resilient during a period when many larger institutions found change harder to absorb.
What has never wavered is our commitment to the standard of education itself: small classes, strong pastoral care, a genuine partnership with families, and an unrelenting focus on getting the fundamentals of British education right, whatever is happening geopolitically.
Looking forward
Ten years on, ISM is not simply surviving the post-Brexit landscape, we are thriving within it. Our community of families, drawn from Madrid and beyond, continues to grow. Our students go on to universities across the UK, Europe, and further afield, carrying qualifications that are respected precisely because they have not been diluted by political change. And our staff, British and Spanish and international alike, remain united by a shared belief in what a genuinely excellent education looks like.
Brexit changed a great many things about the relationship between Britain and the continent. What it did not change, what a decade of experience has now proven, is the trust that families place in the quality, rigour, and lasting value of a British education, delivered with care, in the heart of Madrid.
Here’s to the next ten years.
Tom Davidson
Head of School, ISM
