Ho Chi Minh City · History
From a rented villa to Vietnam's largest British school
British International School Ho Chi Minh City began in 1997 as a two-classroom pre-school founded by one family for their daughter. Nearly three decades later it enrols 2,300 students across three purpose-built campuses.
In August 1997, Maurice and Rosie Nguyen opened a small pre-school called Tiny Tots in a renovated villa on Nguyen Van Thu Street in District 1. The trigger was personal: the couple wanted a British-style early years setting for their one-year-old daughter, Jenny. They had two morning classes and one afternoon play-group. By the end of the first week, 60 children had registered and another 50 were on the waiting list.
A second pre-school, Fundino, followed in District 3. As the two sites filled, the Nguyens extended the original Tiny Tots villa on Nguyen Van Thu Street in 2000 to add ten primary classrooms, bringing the roll to around 300. That year the school was formally renamed the British International School Ho Chi Minh City, and the founders enlisted Nord Anglia Education, then a UK-based education company, to provide professional oversight and quality control of the curriculum.
Expansion and Campus Moves
Demand kept outpacing space. A purpose-built primary campus was established in the residential An Phu area of District 2, and with three sites operating, the combined roll reached around 560. The secondary years followed: a dedicated secondary campus opened on land adjacent to the An Phu primary site, pushing student numbers above 1,000 for the first time. The An Phu Secondary Campus was expanded again in August 2010 as the school pushed toward a projected roll of 2,000.
Meanwhile, as a February 2015 press release confirmed, Nord Anglia Education signed an agreement to bring the entire British International Schools Group Vietnam into its network. The deal, which closed in March 2015, covered four schools: BIS HCMC and three younger siblings, British Vietnamese International School Ho Chi Minh City (founded 2011), BIS Hanoi (2012), and BVIS Hanoi (2013). At the point of acquisition, the four schools together enrolled 3,372 full-time-equivalent students.
The most significant campus change came in January 2018, when a brand-new Early Years and Infant Campus opened on Thao Dien Street in District 2, consolidating the entire school community into one neighbourhood for the first time. The Tu Xuong Campus in District 3, a legacy of the old Fundino site, closed the same year and its students transferred to the An Phu sites. The three Thao Dien campuses, divided by age group, have been the school's settled home since.
Curriculum and Accreditation
From the Early Years through Key Stage 3, BIS HCMC follows the English National Curriculum, enhanced at primary level with the International Primary Curriculum. Secondary students sit Cambridge IGCSE examinations in Years 10 and 11. The school's first sixth-form cohort graduated in 2006; since then, Sixth Form has offered the IB Diploma Programme. In 2025, BIS HCMC recorded an average IB Diploma score of 36.4 points against a global average of 30.6, and twelve students scored between 42 and 44 points, making it the highest-ranking IBDP school in Vietnam.
The school is accredited by the Council of International Schools (CIS), is designated an IB World School, and holds membership of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA). It is also inspected under the British Schools Overseas (BSO) framework. A BSO inspection in 2013 rated the school Outstanding; subsequent inspections in 2016 and 2019 maintained that grade. The November 2025 BSO inspection, conducted by Penta International on behalf of the UK government, again awarded Outstanding in every category, extending a run of more than ten consecutive years at that rating.
Membership of the Nord Anglia network brought three high-profile institutional partnerships: a music curriculum designed in collaboration with The Juilliard School in New York; STEAM and engineering projects developed with MIT; and global citizenship programming tied to UNICEF. Students can also compete and collaborate with peers across Nord Anglia's 80-plus schools through the group's Global Campus platform.
Present Day
The three campuses on Thao Dien Street and Nguyen Van Huong Street in the An Khanh Ward of Thu Duc City accommodate more than 2,300 students from 56 nationalities, aged 2 to 18. Facilities across the sites include three swimming pools, all-weather pitches, a 250-seat theatre, DREAMS robotics and engineering labs, and a dedicated Sixth Form centre. Languages taught include English, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, and Mandarin.
Simon Higham became principal in August 2025, succeeding Anthony Rowlands. Higham joined the BIS community in 2009 as primary deputy headteacher and most recently led BVIS HCMC. In 2025, 34 percent of graduates went on to universities in North America, including Stanford and Cornell; 26 percent chose UK institutions, among them Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial College London.
The school's origin remains a point of institutional pride. Jenny Nguyen, whose birth inspired the whole enterprise, graduated from New York University in the same year the new Early Years and Infant Campus opened. At the 25th-anniversary garden party in February 2023, her parents Maurice Nguyen and Rosie Ngo were joined by Nord Anglia's CEO, the UK Consul General, and representatives of the People's Committee of Thu Duc City to mark a school that grew from 60 children in a rented villa to the largest British school in Vietnam.
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