Returning to Serbia: schools in Belgrade for a child educated abroad

The schools that run the Serbian programme and an international one together, the state route to the IB, the year-group trap, and what the certificate from abroad needs before a Serbian school will place the child.

Updated September 2026 · schools' own pages read 24 August 2026

Schools that teach the Serbian programme and an international one

Three institutions in this guide teach the Serbian national programme and an international programme side by side. For a returning family they solve a problem no other school can: the child keeps the system they know while the family decides, over a year rather than over a summer, whether to move them into the Serbian one.

Ruđer Bošković, in Banovo Brdo, runs the IB Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programmes alongside the Serbian national programme, in English and Serbian, for ages 5 to 18. The school itself describes the point of it: a family can change route without changing school. It admits year-round — you nominate the start date — with a mandatory English placement test and a trial day; from Grade 3 it asks for the đačka knjižica and transcripts. Lunch, uniform and coursebooks are inside the fee, and it publishes a class size of 10 to 20.

Obrazovni sistem „Crnjanski“, also in Banovo Brdo, runs the Serbian national programme, Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary in an English-medium or a bilingual Serbian–English form, Cambridge IGCSE, and the IB Diploma in Grades 11–12, taught in English. It enrols all year, sets a readiness test for Grade 1, and publishes merit scholarships of up to 50%. It does not publish its fees. Note that the International School Crnjanski in Jagodina is a different institution.

Deseta gimnazija „Mihajlo Pupin“ in Novi Beograd is a state gimnazija — the only state school in Belgrade on the IB register — teaching the Serbian gimnazija programme and, in English, the IB Diploma to ages 15 to 19, for no tuition. Entry to the IB stream is by first- and second-year grades plus an entrance examination, and the IB class is capped at 20. For a family whose teenager was on an IB or A-Level track abroad and who intends to stay, it is the route that costs nothing and gives up nothing on the certificate.

Going back into the Serbian system: the year group and the certificate

Serbian children start school a year later than English ones, and the conversion is where returning families most often go wrong. Serbian 1. razred is roughly English Year 3 and American Grade 2; a child arriving from English Year 5 goes into 3. razred, not 5. The school will place by age and prior schooling in any case, but a family that walks in expecting Year 5 to mean 5. razred is asking for a two-year jump. The conversion table lines up the five systems taught in Belgrade by age.

The second thing is the certificate. Recognition of a foreign school certificate is needed when a child moves into the Serbian system — not while they stay in an international school and not when they apply abroad. Where it is needed, the Government of Serbia's own page states that a pupil who has applied for recognition of a foreign primary-school certificate can be conditionally enrolled in the next grade if the procedure is not completed by the beginning of the school year. The child does not sit out a year waiting for a stamp. The recognition page sets out who does it and the two official routes for a primary certificate.

Two smaller things. Brook Hill's document list asks Serbian citizens for parent ID cards in place of passports — a reminder that “international” admissions offices see Serbian families regularly. And a child who has lost their Serbian abroad can rebuild it: nine providers in Belgrade publish that they teach Serbian as a foreign language to children, and the Serbian classes page lists them.

Side by side

For a family that is not sure yet whether the children will finish school in Serbia, these are the schools where the decision can be made later rather than now.

From each school's own pages, read 24 August 2026. “Published” means the school itself publishes a fee schedule; amounts are not reproduced here — see the fees page for why.

Questions families ask