Jakarta · History
The Independent School of Jakarta, built from scratch in 2021
Opened in September 2021 under a UK charity with half a century of school-founding experience, ISJ has grown from a small Pondok Indah start-up into Jakarta's top-ranked British school in just four years.
The Independent School of Jakarta opened its doors in September 2021, taking its first pupils from Nursery through Year 4 on a purpose-built campus in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta. The plan from the outset was deliberate: start small, grow one year group at a time, and mirror the full 2-to-18 arc of a British independent school.
Origins and Backing
ISJ was established as a development of The Schools Trust, a UK-registered charity (registration number 1176052) with more than fifty years of combined experience founding and operating British international schools worldwide. The Trust is responsible for establishing more than fifteen schools across markets ranging from Beijing to Brazil, and it brought that institutional weight to bear on the Jakarta project from day one.
The founding head was Emma Webb, who had previously led Queen's College Prep in London. Webb set the school's tone: recruit teachers exclusively from the UK independent sector, follow the English National Curriculum without compromise, and weave Indonesian language, history, and culture into every stage rather than treating them as add-ons.
Leadership Change
In 2024 Eileen Fisher took over as Academic Director. Edinburgh-born, with 31 years in education, Fisher had spent a decade as Head of the Preparatory School at Ipswich High School and served as Chair of the Prep Heads' Committee for the Girls' Day School Trust, a role that put her in front of prep school heads across the United Kingdom. She had also founded Craigclowan Prep in Xi'an and led the junior school at The British School of Cairo, giving her direct experience of building British education in international settings. She is both an ISI and Penta Inspector, credentials that bear directly on the inspection framework ISJ operates under.
Curriculum and Accreditation
ISJ delivers the English National Curriculum from EYFS through to A Levels, structured as Pre-Prep (ages 2 to 6), Prep School (ages 7 to 13), Senior School leading to IGCSEs, and Sixth Form offering Cambridge A Levels. Every teacher holds UK Qualified Teacher Status and is recruited from leading British independent schools. The school operates under the British Schools Overseas framework and is inspected periodically by ISI or Penta International inspectors, providing the same external oversight applied to British independents at home.
Bahasa Indonesia is taught at every stage. Indonesian language, history, and culture run through the curriculum as a structural element, not a supplementary one. Additional languages on offer include Mandarin, Spanish, and French. The school also operates a Ki Hajar Dewantara Scholarship, named for Indonesia's founding education minister, offering up to full fee relief for high-achieving Indonesian pupils who lack the financial means to attend.
Academically, ISJ's Year 7 cohort recorded mean Standard Age Scores in GL Education assessments of around 122 in English, 118.7 in Mathematics, and 119.7 in Science, placing pupils consistently in the top ten percent of international schools worldwide. The Schools Trust network, of which ISJ is a part, holds first and second place rankings across more than 200 British international schools for A Level and GCSE results.
Campus and Expansion
The current campus sits on Jalan T.B. Simatupang in Pondok Indah, a leafy residential district about twenty minutes from central Jakarta. Facilities include a 25-metre swimming pool, a full-size football pitch, a theatre, dedicated creative arts spaces, and specialist science and language laboratories. The co-curricular programme runs more than 30 clubs per term.
A purpose-built Senior Campus is under development 300 metres from the existing site, designed specifically for GCSE and A Level delivery, with science labs, art studios, a theatre, library, and football pitch. It is scheduled to open in 2028. The first A Level cohort will be pupils already in the school.
In January 2026, ISJ prepared its first cohort of senior pupils for British boarding school applications, hosting Kay Extance, Head of Senior School at Ipswich High School in Suffolk, to meet parents and students exploring UK pathways. Year 7 and Year 8 pupils were scheduled to travel to Ipswich High School in April 2026 for a twelve-day immersion, attending lessons, living in boarding houses, and making excursions to London, Oxford, and Cambridge. The connection to Ipswich High is personal: Fisher spent ten years as head of its preparatory school, and The Schools Trust owns Woolverstone Hall, the school's 87-acre Suffolk estate, where ISJ pupils travel annually for a residential taste of British boarding life.
Present Day
ISJ enrolls around 180 pupils across its age range of 2 to 18, with the roll growing each year as new cohorts advance. In May 2026, the school was ranked the number one British curriculum school in Jakarta and 22nd across Asia in the 2026 British Schools Asia index, an independent ranking compiled from tuition fees and reputation signals across more than 200 schools in the region. Eileen Fisher leads the school from the Pondok Indah campus. The senior campus opens in 2028.