Shanghai · History
First British school in China, still running after 23 years
Opened in Pudong in 2002, NAIS Pudong broke new ground as China's first British international school. It has operated under two names, grown a global curriculum, and held that founding record ever since.
Origins
On a stretch of Pudong that in 2002 had few international amenities and no international schools, Nord Anglia International School Shanghai, Pudong opened its doors as a genuine first. The Pudong District Government's own profile records it as the first British school in China and the first international school in the Pudong New District. The opening was formal enough to draw a minister: the school was inaugurated by Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, then a senior figure in Tony Blair's cabinet.
The school opened under the name British International School of Shanghai, Pudong, known informally as BISS Pudong. That placed it in the same family as its Puxi counterpart, the British International School Shanghai, Puxi, which remains a sister school within the Nord Anglia group today.
Behind both schools stood Nord Anglia Education, a company founded in 1972 by Kevin McNeany in northern England, originally to teach English as a foreign language. By the 1990s Nord Anglia had pivoted toward running international schools in Central and Eastern Europe and the Far East, and by 2002 it was pushing into China's fast-expanding expatriate market.
Name change and group growth
The school carried the BISS Pudong name for its first thirteen years. In 2015 it was renamed Nord Anglia International School Shanghai, Pudong, a change the school describes as reflecting its identity as part of the Nord Anglia Education global family. The sister school in Puxi kept its British International School branding, a distinction that persists today.
The name change coincided with a period of rapid expansion for Nord Anglia Education more broadly. The group listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2014, relocated its headquarters from Hong Kong to London in 2019, and by 2024 was valued at $14.5 billion when a private equity consortium led by Neuberger Berman agreed to acquire it. The deal completed in March 2025. Throughout that corporate journey, NAIS Pudong remained the group's longest-running school in China.
Curriculum and accreditation
The school runs the English National Curriculum from Early Years through to the end of Key Stage 3, augmented in the primary years by the International Primary Curriculum. Students in Years 10 and 11 sit Cambridge IGCSE examinations; those in Years 12 and 13 follow the IB Diploma Programme. Mandarin is taught from the Early Years Foundation Stage onwards. The curriculum structure covers ages two to eighteen without a break.
Accreditation sits with multiple bodies. The school is an accredited centre for Cambridge International Examinations and Edexcel, a recognised IB World School, a member of the Council of British International Schools, and a member of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia, which it joined in 2013.
IB results have become a point of distinction. The school reports an average Diploma score of 37 against a global average of 30.58, with a top score of 43. The school has publicly marked more than 20 years as an IB school delivering those results.
Campus and present day
The campus sits at 2888 Junmin Road in the Kangqiao area of Pudong, roughly 30 minutes from central Shanghai and close to the Shanghai Disney Resort. Facilities include separate Early Years, Primary and Secondary buildings, an indoor swimming pool, two large sports halls, grass and artificial-turf football pitches, a renovated theatre, science laboratories, and a Performing Arts Centre. The school notes that its natural grass football pitch is one of very few in Pudong.
The current principal is Diane Vaughan. The school has a roll of approximately 700 students drawn from more than 40 nationalities. It operates as a day school only, with over 140 co-curricular activities on offer. Formal partnerships with MIT, The Juilliard School, UNICEF and IMG Academy feed into its STEAM, performing arts, and sports programmes.
More than two decades after Hewitt cut the ribbon in a district that had just started building its international community, NAIS Pudong retains the record it set on its first day: the longest-running British international school in China.
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