Our Story
What Does Every Parent Want?
Every parent wants one simple thing for their child: a school where they feel safe, supported, and truly inspired to succeed.
The Current Education System is Broken
When American entrepreneur and Harvard Law graduate Akida Mashaka (above left) looked for a school in Barcelona for his own teenage son, he hit a wall. He found a broken system. On one side were rigid, traditional schools teaching a 200-year-old industrial-age curriculum that forced children to memorize facts rather than think independently. On the other side were alternative programs with zero academic structure. There was no middle ground—no place where a child's unique "superpower" was celebrated, and no environment balancing high academic standards with genuine emotional well-being.
Born From a Father’s Mission to Find a Better Way
Frustrated by a legacy system designed to build cogs for a machine rather than leaders for the real world, Akida decided to fix it himself.
So Akida took a fearless leap and opened Barcelona High School (BHS) with just 5 teenage students in a windowless basement. As Founder, Akida brought his background as a successful entrepreneur to education, introducing a culture where failure wasn't punished, but treated as the ultimate data point for growth.
The turning point came when Akida partnered with Co-Founder, Amanda Slefo (above right), an award-winning educator from Chicago, who shared his vision that modern schooling was deeply flawed. Together, as the ultimate team, they combined Akida’s entrepreneurial drive with Amanda’s academic leadership to build something entirely new.
A New Educational Framework
To solve the problem for those original five students, Akida and Amanda developed a proprietary, dual-layered framework designed to help students thrive in a rapidly changing world:
1. The Social Wellness School™ Model
A social and emotional learning system where academic excellence is driven by social engagement and emotional health.
2. The BHS Method™ (Build. Harvest. Succeed.)
An academic shift away from "teaching to the test." Instead, students learn by doing, embracing feedback, and fearlessly navigating trial and error to find real-world solutions.
Growth Not by Choice
What started as a desperate solution for one father's son rapidly transformed. Reluctantly at first, Akida realized this wasn't just his son’s problem—it was a crisis facing families around the world. Driven by word-of-mouth from parents witnessing radical transformations in their own children, BHS had no choice but to grow if it was truly wanted to change the world.
Today, BHS is a fully accredited by the Spanish Ministry of Education, as an official American international school in Spain, expanding from that basement of five students to over 500 students across two cutting-edge campuses. A family-friendly primary campus in the upper Gràcia district and an innovative secondary campus in the 22@ tech district of Poblenou.
The Result: True Success for Students
Without a change, students face the failure of an outdated educational model—becoming obedient test-takers who enter the real world disconnected, overwhelmed, and unprepared for independent thought.
By choosing BHS, students experience true success. Students step into a family-like community with small classrooms where teachers act as mentors and coaches. Students just don't perform better academically; they transform into confident, self-aware, and independent creators.
At BHS, the future doesn’t belong to those who follow lines—it belongs to those who shape them.