Milan for Indian families: international schools and their fees, the Italian-school route, the neighbourhoods families choose, and where children get help with maths and English

This Indian families Milan schools guide is for the family that has landed in the one Italian city where the school question has too many answers. Milan has the largest group of Indian professionals in Italy, in IT, fashion, finance, pharma and consulting, and it has more international schools than the rest of the country combined, alongside a thousand Italian state schools and a layer of bilingual paritarie in between. It also has a long-settled Indian community across Lombardy that sends its children to the Italian schools without a second thought. This guide walks through the schools, the neighbourhoods, the community and the questions we hear most, for children aged 6 to 14.

Why Milan

The employers: the Indian IT and consulting firms that serve Milan's banks and insurers; the fashion and luxury houses; the pharmaceutical and medical companies; the consultancies; and, for the researchers, the Politecnico, Bocconi, Bicocca and the hospitals. Milan is the only Italian city that draws Indian professionals on postings the way Amsterdam or Dubai do, and it is the gateway to the Lombardy plain where Punjabi families have lived for thirty years in Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona and Mantova. The result is two Indian Milans, the posting families in the city and the settled families around it, and they meet at the gurdwaras, the temples, the Diwali events and, increasingly, in the same school gates.

Schools: the international route

The International School of Milan runs the IB continuum from early years to Diploma on a campus on the north-western edge of the city, one of the largest and oldest international schools in Italy. ICS Milan is the newer IB school inside the city, growing year by year. The American School of Milan, to the south towards Opera, follows an American programme with the IB Diploma at the end. The British School of Milan teaches the English National Curriculum through IGCSE and then the IB Diploma. St Louis School runs the IB continuum across several campuses and is the largest by numbers. The Bilingual European School and the smaller international schools, Andersen and the Canadian School, sit between the international and the Italian systems. Fees run from about €12,000 in the early years to €25,000 and more at Diploma, plus admission, bus and lunch.

What Milan parents ask us about them: the mixed-ability PYP classes and how to read a report with no marks in it, which is in IB PYP maths explained; the MYP grade that stays on a 5 for a child who gets every test right, which is in IB MYP maths criteria explained; and, at the British School, the Year 5 child from a CBSE school who finds the maths easy and the writing hard, which is in KS2 and KS3 maths at a British school. The comparison of all three routes, on cost, language and the return-to-India question, is in international school or Italian school.

Schools: the bilingual middle and the Italian route

Milan has more bilingual paritarie than any other Italian city: private, state-recognised schools on the Italian curriculum with a large part of the day in English, at €6,000 to €12,000 a year. For a family staying four or five years with a child under 10, they are often the answer, and the question to ask each one is how many hours a week are actually in English, because the range is wide.

The Italian state school is free, in the neighbourhood, and where most Indian children in Milan are. The tempo pieno day runs to 16:30 in most city schools, the child's Italian is native within two years, the homework starts in classe 1 and the summer is three months long. How the system works class by class, and how a child arriving from India is placed, is in the Italian school system explained, and what the homework and the summer look like is in compiti and the three-month summer. Milan's comune runs Italian-as-a-second-language support for newcomer children through the schools, and the city's scuole medie feed some of the strongest licei in the country.

Neighbourhoods families choose

Città Studi and Lambrate, around the Politecnico, are the university families' districts, with good state schools and the metro. Bicocca in the north has the university, the tech offices and newer housing. Porta Romana, Corvetto and the south are the choice for families at the American School, with the metro to the centre. The north-west, around Baranzate and the Gallaratese, is the International School of Milan's catchment. Isola and Porta Nuova are for families who want the new Milan and can pay for it. Outside the city, Segrate and San Donato to the east have gardens and state schools with places, Monza to the north has its own international school and a slower life, and the towns along the green and red metro lines give a family the city at half the rent. A family choosing an Italian school should choose the neighbourhood first, because the school follows the address.

The community and life for children

Milan's Indian community meets at the temples and the gurdwara in the city and around it, at the Diwali and Holi events that have grown large enough to fill halls, and in the WhatsApp groups that answer every question about paediatricians, Indian groceries and Hindi classes within an hour. Cricket exists, in Milan and across Lombardy, with a growing set of clubs and youth sides. For children the city has the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia, one of the best science museums in Europe, the Planetario, the parks at Sempione and the Idroscalo, the lakes an hour away, and the city libraries with children's sections in several languages. Every child will be asked about the summer centro estivo and every parent will be asked about the compiti delle vacanze.

What Milan parents ask us

In the first month: which international school, or whether the Italian school is realistic, and which classe the child will be placed in. In the first term: why the classe 4 pagella says buono about a child who was a topper in Bengaluru, which is the subject of Italian school maths against CBSE. In seconda media: how to make the consiglio orientativo say liceo scientifico. And from the posting families: how to keep the door to India open, which is the same plan we use for families in the Netherlands, in how to keep your child CBSE-ready.

Getting help with maths, science and English in Milan

Classes at 4, 5, 6 or 7 pm in Milan are ordinary working hours for our tutors in India, and a child at the ISM, the British School, a bilingual paritaria in Città Studi or a scuola media in Segrate gets a tutor who knows that school's system, in a 1-on-1 online lesson from the kitchen table, in English, Hindi or Punjabi. The summer, from early June to mid September, is when most Milan families add a second weekly class. What that looks like for this city is on our Milan page. Bring the last school report to the free demo and we will tell you in thirty minutes whether the issue is the maths, the language, or the way the school grades.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →