From 300 pupils on empty lots to 1,660: Wellington Shanghai at twelve

Origins

The institution behind Wellington College International Shanghai traces its lineage to 1859, when Queen Victoria founded Wellington College in Crowthorne, Berkshire, as a national monument to Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. The China enterprise began half a century later in a very different register. Joy Qiao, a Shanghai-born Oxford computer-science graduate who had spent a decade at Intel, began searching for a school for her son and found little that satisfied her. That search became a mission. She founded Wellington College Education (China) and, in partnership with Wellington College UK, opened Wellington College International Tianjin in August 2011, the network's first China campus.

Shanghai followed three years later. Wellington College and the Shanghai Lujiazui Group, the state-backed developer that built the Lujiazui Financial District, signed a strategic partnership agreement to construct a second campus in the Qiantan International Business District, a then-nascent post-Expo development zone in Pudong. Lujiazui built it; Wellington ran it. The partnership was the second collaboration between the two organisations, following the Tianjin model. On 24 August 2014, the school opened its doors to its first cohort. According to Master Brendon Fulton, writing on the school's tenth anniversary, that first intake comprised roughly 300 pupils taught by 65 teachers, and the neighbourhood around them was, in his words, "just a patchwork of empty lots."

The founding headmaster was David Cook, who framed the school's purpose in explicitly holistic terms at the official launch, citing the ambition to develop all of a child's intelligences rather than one or two, and describing the boarding provision as central to creating a home-away-from-home community.

Growth

The school grew steadily through its first decade. By the time it marked its tenth anniversary in November 2024, enrolment had reached over 1,600 pupils and close to 400 staff. The community drew families from more than 40 nationalities. Qiantan had grown around it: the empty lots gave way to office towers, hotels, and the Taikooli shopping village, with Wellington sitting as the only international school directly on the Huangpu River.

Within the wider Wellington College Education (China) network, the Shanghai campus became the flagship for international-programme delivery. The group also opened a bilingual strand under the Hiba Academy name: Hiba Academy Shanghai launched in 2018, with Hiba Academy Hangzhou and Wellington College International Hangzhou opening the same year, and the flagship bilingual boarding school Hiba Academy Nantong following in 2022. The Shanghai campus remained separately focused on the English-curriculum and IB pathway for expatriate and internationally mobile families.

Leadership changed in 2021, when Brendon Fulton, who had previously served as Executive Principal of the Dubai British School group in the UAE, was appointed Master. He took on the role with a stated emphasis on pastoral care and wellbeing alongside academic rigour, and led the school through the final disruptions of the Covid period into its tenth-anniversary year. In the 2024-25 academic year, the school launched Vision 2027, described as a strategic plan to position the college as a global leader in bespoke educational approaches.

Curriculum and accreditation

The school runs a continuous pathway from Pre-Nursery through to Year 13. The Early Years Centre follows the English Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum; primary years use the English National Curriculum, enhanced with elements of the International Primary Curriculum. In Years 10 and 11, pupils sit IGCSEs; Years 12 and 13 follow the IB Diploma Programme. The school is one of the few in Shanghai certified to offer the IB examination, and its sixth form operates as the post-16 pathway for the Wellington China network's internationally mobile cohort.

On accreditation, Wellington College International Shanghai holds membership and accreditation from three bodies: the Council of International Schools (CIS), the International Baccalaureate Organization, and the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). CIS first accredited the school in January 2019, then re-accredited it in February 2025, according to the CIS accreditation register. The school also holds membership of ACAMIS and FOBISIA.

Present day

Wellington College International Shanghai currently enrols 1,660 pupils aged two to eighteen on its campus at No. 1500 Yao Long Road, Pudong New District. The site includes a 500-seat theatre, a black-box theatre, two swimming pools, a multi-purpose sports hall known as the Dome, outdoor football and running facilities, and specialist labs for ICT, robotics, and design technology. The Early Years Centre operates from a separate, purpose-built building a short distance from the main campus.

Results in the IB Diploma have been consistently strong. The Class of 2024 averaged 37.1 points against a global average of 30.6; the Class of 2025 averaged 37.4, with two students achieving the maximum score of 45. The school ranks second in China among international schools according to the Hurun school index, and features in the Carfax Schools Index Top 150. More than 80 percent of graduates go on to universities in the United States or United Kingdom, including Oxford, Cambridge, Brown, and Caltech. Master Brendon Fulton remains in post.

Read the full Wellington College International Shanghai profile →