BHS
Founded in 2020 during Covid by American entrepreneur and Harvard graduate Akida Mashaka who wanted a better education model for his teenage son, BHS is a one-of-a-kind international American School in Barcelona Spain with a mission to solve the failures of traditional education, so all students in the post-Covid era not only excel academically to attend the world's top universities if desired, but also excel socially and psychologically as well in equal measure.
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BHS originally started as "Barcelona High School" and then added a middle school to keep up with the demand for its revolutionary educational model and student experience. BHS is now expanding to add preschool and elementary school in a seperate campus for the upcoming school year to further accomplish its goal of transforming education as we know it.
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BHS stands for its revolutionary pedagogy "Build. Harvest. Succeed.", an educational movement to provide the most engaging school experience possible based on empowering fearless curiosity and hands on problem solving through trial and error to achieve successful executive functioning, instead of the outdated traditional rote memorization methodology developed in the industrial age over 200 years ago that fails to prepare students for the world that exists today.
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Instead of being located outside the city like other international and American schools in Barcelona, BHS is centrally located in Barcelona.​
For the middle and high school grades, BHS is moving into a new state of the art building known as Midtown BCN, located next to modern student residences of the boarding school program available only for high school students. For preschool and elementary school education, BHS will be announcing the details of the new campus in the spring. ​​
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BHS was created based on the idea of a Social Wellness School™, an educational pedagogy developed to focus on student mental health and social life, in equal measure with academics, in order for students to find their superpower.
BHS uses its own modern teaching methodology known as the BHS Method™, derived from Akida's BHS Method™ for Startups and refined by award-winning American educator and BHS Director & Partner Amanda Slefo, which asserts that people learn better by doing versus memorization as the best way for students to obtain the skills they will need for the world they will be in.
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Although BHS is growing rapidly (from 5 to 340 students in less than 5 years), BHS has an internationally diverse student population from around the world while still maintaining a small student-teacher ratio unlike other international schools in Barcelona. This growth, small class size and unity in diversity creates the most amazing student life and student core values. BHS students say:
"BHS feels like one big family where we get to make new friends everyday". ​​​
BHS is the only American school in Barcelona that uses only US curriculum, including Advanced Placement (AP) for elite academic students, unlike the other American IB schools in Barcelona that use the one-size-fits-all International Baccalaureate system instead of the flexible and personalized American curriculum system.
BHS also offers Spanish and Catalan language fluency courses and the ESO Certificate for Catalan and Spanish speakers upon completing 10th grade, known as ESO4 in Spain.
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Moreover, BHS is the only school in Barcelona with an English Language Learners (ELL) program for non-English speakers from early childhood throughout high school.​​
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As explained above, BHS was created for the post-Covid education era. An era where flexibility and student-centered learning is the future and traditional one-size-fits-all education is the past.
Therefore, BHS is NOT for you if you prefer traditional schools with an educational model that focuses on "teaching to the test", instead of academic curiousity, social wellbeing, and psychological confidence in equal measure to prepare students to be global citizens of the world.
On the other extreme, BHS is also NOT for you if you prefer super alternative schools that lack academic structure which undermines a student's ability to reach their full potential through learning how to study and challenge themselves academically, and even to perform well on standardized tests if desired.
However, BHS is the perfect school for you if you want a school that keeps its promise to holistically teach students to be problem solvers and in charge of their own destiny through academic curiosity, social engagement and psychological wellness.​​​
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The learning environment is dynamic and students are encouraged from different grade levels and nationalities to interact and ask questions in class which leads to an incredible blend of ideas and perspectives.
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BHS is an independent private school that is 100% funded by school fees and tuition as BHS receives no (0%) financial support from the local and national Spanish government, nor its home country government in the USA, unlike the other international schools in Barcelona.
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BHS is approved and accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Barcelona Education Department (Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona) as an American US curriclum school with school code 08079146. As an official school in Spain, BHS students can attend universities in Spain with their American High School Diploma from BHS.
At the BHS Graduation Ceremony, students receive an official American High School Diploma which permits students not only to attend universities in Spain, but also to obtain university placement everywhere in the world, including throughout Europe and in the USA, as well as Canada.
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Even as a new school, BHS students have already been accepted into the most elite universities in USA (Princeton University, Parsons School of Design, Berklee College of Music, Georgia Tech, Swarthmore College, Boston University, Middlebury College, etc.) and Canada (McGill University). However, most BHS students prefer to attend universities in Europe (particularly in Spain), including the UK, that offer Bachelor's degrees in English that match their interests. Alternatively, some students take a gap year after high school to further discover or develop their true passions before attending university.