How to get your kids registered for public school in Portugal

HOW TO GET YOUR KIDS REGISTERED FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL IN PORTUGAL

Hello all! If you’ve read our other blog posts, you know that we are a family of 4 that moved from Austin, Texas to Lisbon, Portugal in July 2021. This blog post is all about the necessary documents to get your kids registered for public school in Portugal. I heard that Portugal is quite bureaucratic and when it comes to public school, the amount of paperwork needed is astounding. The Portal das Matriculas opens during certain dates depending on the age/grade of your kid.

registration:

Keep in mind that high school in Portugal is 10-12th grades. Our 15 year old daughter is going into 10th grade this year and we had to register her by June 30th. So, we had to set up an online account through the Portal. After we set up the online account with her NIF, we chose the top 5 schools that we wanted her to go to. Due to our extremely limited Portuguese understanding, the registration took way longer than it should have.

Our good friend, João, who lives in Lisbon, helped us with the registration via Zoom and Whatsapp. After approximately 10 hours of filling out the forms and questioning why we couldn’t move onto the next page, we finally succeeded. We felt so accomplished!

After we registered for public school, we gathered all of the necessary documents (before we left Texas) that we would need to present in Portugal.

This is exactly what we did:

1. Emailed our daughter’s U.S. high school to request her transcript and grades. The Principal or Admin or Registrar must sign and notarize the documents. Thankfully, they had an onsite notary. If your school doesn’t have an onsite notary, then you need to hire a mobile notary to go and witness the signature of the Principal/Admin or Registrar at your school. $3 USD fee
2. Take or mail the documents to your Secretary of State or US Embassy (if in Portugal) and request the Hague Apostille. $15 fee
3. Once you have gathered all of these documents, you need to have them professionally translated. We hired Alphatrad in Lisbon to translate, notarize and certify the documents. Since we needed the documents ASAP, we paid extra for a 48 hour turnaround. The total fee was 200 Euro.
4. Take these original documents to your “home” school for DGE equivalency. The “home” school is the school that your child should go to according to your address. Equivalency means that the Portuguese education system recognizes that your child is in the grade that you say they are in. Our “home” school made copies of these documents and returned the originals to us. Then, they gave us a receipt showing that the Equivalency is in process. The process typically takes 30 days, but your school of choice only needs proof that the equivalency process has been started.

5. proof of equivalency:

6. We took a photo and emailed this receipt to the school we wanted our daughter to go to. One week later, we were informed that our daughter was accepted to her 1st choice school. We are thrilled that she will be attending an Arts based public high school in Lisbon!
7. The “home” school called us to say that they need another document. Remember what I said above about Portugal being bureaucratic? Even though our daughter’s transcript and documents verify that she has enough credits to clearly have passed 9th grade, they wanted a document stating that she “finished” or “graduated” from 9th grade and is in 10th grade now. It’s all about semantics.
8. In Portugal, middle school ends in 9th grade so most students here would have a document that states that they graduated from 9th grade. However, in the US, 9th grade is the first year of high school so the school wouldn’t even consider stating that a 9th grader “graduated.” So, I emailed the US high school Registrar to ask for an email stating that our daughter finished 9th grade and is supposed to be in 10th grade. Now, we need to get the document translated, notarized, certified, etc.

Have you successfully registered your child for a public school in Portugal? How was the process for you?

portuguese public school:

Despite our extremely limited Portuguese, we were able to communicate with the schools and found the Admins to be gracious and helpful. They truly want what is best for your child. They will do everything possible to make sure that your child goes to school!

We will do another post once our daughter actually starts school. As her Portuguese is very limited, we are hoping that this isn’t an insurmountable issue. Thankfully, the school informed us that she would be in a Portuguese for Foreigners class. We also plan on hiring a local language tutor or have online support. We are aware that this will be challenging and are hoping that our daughter is ready for the challenge. For a little background information, Fernando is from Chile so his first language was Spanish and we all speak/read/understand Spanish. The foundation is Spanish really helps with Portuguese (until it doesn’t!).

homeschooling in portugal:

Our son is going into the 8th grade and we have decided that we will homeschool him for the first year of school. He is registered through an umbrella school, West River Academy. That means that we can teach him the subjects we choose. And they can provide school transcripts and more. He is excited to learn about investing, budgeting, cooking, adulting 101 and hands on Portuguese history by visiting the local museums! He does most of his core classes online via KHAN Academy.

I recently started a Buy Me a Coffee profile. If you loved what you read and would like to support our creative endeavors, we would be grateful if you’d “buy us a coffee.” Well, in my case, a juice. Thanks! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/veganfamily

We would be thrilled if you would use our Affiliate links attached here. If you buy something using our links, we receive a small commission. This helps us to continue creating amazing content on the blog for free. Thank you so much!

AFFILIATE LINKS – CLICK HERE

THE 5 ITEMS WE WERE SO HAPPY TO HAVE FOR ALL OF OUR TRIPS:

1. Merrell women’s light hiking shoes – these are amazing because they are lightweight, but are extra grippy and helpful! I also have this pair that I always get compliments on: Merrell Rainbow shoes. Fernando loves his Asics trail runners which are also grippy and perfect for walking on cobblestone streets.
2. Thermoflask water bottle – like a Hydroflask, but more affordable! We don’t go anywhere without these water bottles full of purified water.
3. North Face Aphrodite 2.0 capris – Seriously, I wear these pants every.single.day! I couldn’t live without these ultra-comfy, lightweight pants that dry so quickly. They are 100% worth the money!
4. Osprey Day Pack – this is an awesome lightweight backpack! We easily put the belongings we need at hand for traveling around the city and on public transportation.
5. Travel-friendly chewable toothpaste tablets – these are so fantastic for keeping your teeth clean on the go!

OUR FAVORITE EUROPEAN SERVICES:

1. DISCOVER CARS – If you want to rent a car while you’re in Europe, our favorite car rental aggregator is Discover Cars. We frequently rent cars, and they always have the best prices and great quality vehicles.
2. iTalki – if you want to learn another language before traveling to Europe or while you’re there, we love iTalki. We highly recommend their language services.
3. NORD VPN – perfect to use your technology in other countries!
4. Airalo E-Sim – this let’s you use your phone anywhere in the world without having to get a physical sim! We use this all the time when we travel outside Europe!
5. For fun activities in each city, check out Viator and their recommendations.
6. Big Bus Tours – the perfect way to see the city when you first arrive!
7. Get Transfer – transfers between all of the airports and cities