St. Andrew's Scots School is a bilingual school in Buenos Aires, Argentina enrolling about 1900 students. All its students are expected to complete seven IGCSE exams (Cambridge University) in year 10 and receive an International Baccalaureate diploma in their last year at school.
The school was established by a group of Scottish settlers determined to educate their children in their language, their culture and their faith. On the 1st of September 1838, thirteen years after the arrival of those settlers, a tiny school was opened in the Presbyterian Church, at Piedras 55 in the city of Buenos Aires. The first pupils were girls, but the school rapidly became co-educational. The founders sought to integrate Christian faith and practice with academic distinction. In their eyes, education was an instrument of moral training, directed to its highest purpose when it is made not merely an exercise of the mind but a training of the opinions, disposition and habits.
In 1885 the opening of the Avenida de Mayo led to the pulling down of the Scottish Church building. The growing school was moved to the Constitución district, to Ituzaingó 530, where it catered for 135 pupils drawn from various nationalities: Scottish, English, Irish, French, Spanish, Italian and Argentine. The Church, meanwhile, moved to Avenida Belgrano and Perú, where it remained to this day.
Some of the well remembered Headmasters of the school in those early days were Rev. William Brown, Rev. James Smith and, for a short period, Alexander Watson Hutton, who figures more generally in Argentine history as the pioneer of football in the country. In 1947, with the continual migration of the English-speaking community to the northern suburbs, the school was moved to Olivos. The premises at Nogoyá 550 were inaugurated as an all-boys school.
In 1963, in order to teach English to children who did not speak the language at home, a kindergarten in English was opened in Olivos. St. Andrew’s Scots School for Girls was opened in 1966. The school returned to co-education in 1980 and the boys’ and girls’ schools were fully integrated. That same year a second primary school and kindergarten were inaugurated in Punta Chica to make room for a growing student body.
In 1988 St. Andrew’s moved into the field of higher education and opened the Universidad de San Andrés (University of St. Andrew's). The private university was built in Victoria, Buenos Aires close to the Punta Chica primary school.