We sent a survey to families in the Ericeira and Mafra area. Here is what we heard, including the honest questions and concerns.
84% of respondents are from outside Portugal or from mixed households. 76% plan to stay permanently. The majority have been in the area between one and five years. Long enough to know what is missing, not so long that their school decisions are already settled.
54 families have two children, 11 have three. The 172 children in this survey are real enrolment demand, not speculative interest.
172 children mapped. Buckets reflect each child's future stage, according to the 2029/30 academic year (Telos Academy's planned opening year) - not their age today.
The academic gap you see isn't random.
Families with older children have already made hard choices: they've relocated for school, accepted long daily commutes, or turned to homeschooling. Or they never moved to the area at all - they chose differently because the local options couldn't serve their teenagers.
Without a new option nearby, the younger cohort on the left (the 56 who'll be in early years and the 82 who'll be in primary) will face the same dead end in just a few years. They'll reach secondary school age and their parents will confront the same constraint: stay and compromise, or leave.
Telos Academy closes that gap. It gives families the choice to stay.
We asked where families are in their school search, when they need a place, and how far they would travel for the right one.
93% of families would travel up to 30 minutes.
"There are no international state-recognised schools between Sintra and Torres Vedras, despite a clear local demand."
"No international schools within 30 mins radius is putting us off relocating to Ericeira so this would be fantastic."
Respondents could select up to four priorities. Real-world and practical skills came first, by a wide margin. Community and social environment came second. Academic rigour ranked seventh. These families have already decided that the traditional model is not what they want.
34% have concerns or prefer traditional. See our response in section 05.
"We're happy with [our school] but it caps at 7. We want something more project-based versus free-reign unschooling."
"There aren't solutions similar to [our school] or other project-based schools for kids aged 10 onwards."
"A real integration of creative development and sport in the curriculum, not just a nod to both with a single art class and PE class a week, which seems to be the norm in most schools."
Families were asked how comfortable the would be with a fee range of €8,000 to €12,000 per year (roughly €600 to €1,000/month), with the context that Portuguese private schools range from €4,900 to €5,800 annually; and international schools in Portugal range from €9,000 to €17,000 annually.
76% said yes or are potentially open to it. Amazing signal.
Survey respondents raised pointed questions in the open-text fields. These deserve direct answers, not deflection.
Yes. University preparation is a core outcome of Telos. We want to provide children a modern education, with as much time spent outdoors as possible. But we don't want to compromise on education standards or limit their future opportunities. To that end, we are evaluating Cambridge International as our leading curriculum framework. It is the same underpinning used by respected international schools worldwide, providing externally recognised qualifications and proven pathways to universities in the UK, EU, and beyond. The final choice will be confirmed as part of our regulatory and accreditation process. Mastery-based learning does not mean unstructured learning. It means a child advances when they have genuinely understood something, not because a term ended. Check out how we approach academics for the full picture.
34% of respondents flagged this, so we understand it weighs on families. The adaptive tools are used only in the focused morning session. The goal is for the rest of the day to be as hands-on, physical, and offline as possible. Several parents who flagged concerns also noted they simply had not encountered this model before and wanted to understand it better. We will publish a detailed explanation of how it works, what the evidence says, and what it looks like in practice, before we ask anyone to decide anything. See ages & stages for how screen time is handled by group, and how we learn and how we explore for how the rest of the day is structured.
Update: we addressed this directly in our follow-up survey. After seeing the model in practice, 73% of respondents were positive or comfortable, and knowing the Early Years block is almost screen-free resolved the concern for the majority of parents with young children.
We are aware of Alpha School, and are transparently inspired by its structure and self-reported results. We share structural similarities: a focused morning academic block, personalised pace, afternoon real-world activities. What we are building does differ in some important ways, however: we are Portuguese-rooted; we are evaluating using Cambridge International as our curriculum standard as opposed to the US Common Core curriculum used by Alpha; we are hyper-focused on community input; and most critically, we will have qualified teachers onsite to educate and drive the curriculum, alongside the adaptive software (Alpha has no teachers on-site). Our philosophy page sets out what we stand for, and how we learn covers the model in detail.
We cannot manufacture history. What we can do is be transparent about who is building this, what their qualifications are, what external accreditation we will seek and in what order, and how we plan to demonstrate competence before asking families to commit. We take seriously the concern that joining in the first year carries real risk for a child. Our task is to de-risk as much as possible, and make any remaining risk legible and manageable, in order to earn trust before enrolment opens, not after. Our development roadmap shows exactly what we are doing and when.
The concern is well-founded and we share it. Several respondents put it plainly: a school that only serves international families with international incomes is not what Ericeira needs. We intend to build something rooted in this community, with strong Portuguese language integration, local cultural connections, and a pricing structure that does not make access a function of passport. We do not yet have a full answer on how this works financially. We will be honest about the constraints as they become clearer. More on why Ericeira and how we belong here.
Beyond enrolment, respondents were asked whether they wanted to be more active in building the school. 94 of 100 expressed some interest. The numbers below reflect how many mentioned each type of involvement, including those who selected multiple options.
The numbers tell us there is real demand for what we are building. They also tell us where we still have work to do.
Opening a modern campus is no easy feat. It means running three workstreams in parallel: securing a site and building the campus, working through Portuguese licensing and international curriculum accreditation, and building the community, team, and systems that will run the school.
Site acquisition was the single biggest priority at the time of this survey, and it is now done. We have since signed a promissory purchase contract for the campus site. Licensing, architecture, and construction all sit downstream of it, and can now move forward.
Indicative durations. All dates are subject to planning approvals, regulatory authorisation, and construction progress.
Beyond general involvement, there are three concrete things we need help with this year. Each one is a real bottleneck for us, and a small amount of your time, or the right introduction, can unblock it.
Thank you to everyone who kept an eye out for us. We have signed a promissory purchase contract for the campus site near Ericeira, which unblocks licensing, design, construction, and accreditation. We are no longer looking.
See the roadmap → CurriculumWe're forming a small advisory board of experienced educators to help shape the curriculum.
The survey is closed, but you can check out the results.
View the follow-up results →