Bangkok · History
From a Petchkasem kindergarten to a 900-pupil British school
Denla British School traces its roots to a single kindergarten founded in 1979. Nearly four decades later, the Pandejpong family opened a full British through-school on a 24-acre Nonthaburi campus.
The school that became Denla British School did not start with a British curriculum, a sixth form, or a 600-seat auditorium. It started with a kindergarten on Petchkasem Road, opened in 1979 by the Pandejpong family with a straightforward ambition: quality early education for young children in Bangkok.
Origins
Denla Kindergarten, as the first school was named, built its reputation slowly, on the strength of its teaching and what the family described as a Total Quality Management approach to school leadership. A second campus, Denla Rama V, opened on Rama 5 Road in May 2006 to meet demand that had outgrown the original site. By then the two kindergartens together enrolled around 3,000 children aged two to six, and the group employed some 600 staff.
The second generation of the family, Dr Toryos Pandejpong and Dr Temyos Pandejpong, took over operational management alongside the group's chairman, Arn Pandejpong. Their diagnosis of Thai education was pointed: even well-educated Thai students were leaving school lacking confidence, English fluency, and creative range. The solution they settled on was a British independent school curriculum, delivered on a purpose-built campus of a scale that Bangkok had not seen before.
Opening and Early Growth
Denla British School opened for its first full academic year on 28 August 2017, located on Ratchapruek Road in Om Kret, Pak Kret, Nonthaburi, roughly 45 minutes north of central Bangkok. The campus covers 24 acres. At opening, the school enrolled children aged three to eleven, from Early Years 1 to Year 6, with roughly 200 pupils on roll. The plan from the start was to add year groups incrementally: Year 8 followed in 2018, with the school eventually extending all the way to Year 13.
Leadership came quickly into focus. In August 2018 the board appointed Mark McVeigh as principal, following an international recruitment search. McVeigh brought experience from Marlborough College in Wiltshire and Marlborough College Malaysia. As the Bangkok Post reported at the time, he intended to distinguish DBS through a child-centred, personalised approach grounded in premium teaching quality. Under his leadership the school extended its year-group range and expanded its sports facilities.
Campus and Curriculum Identity
DBS set itself apart from most Bangkok international schools by modelling its programme explicitly on the UK independent school sector rather than simply following the statutory English National Curriculum. The school calls this an Enhanced British Curriculum. It runs the English National Curriculum through Lower School, specialist subject teaching from primary onwards, Cambridge IGCSE in Years 10 and 11, and A Levels in the Sixth Form. One practical expression of that ambition is the Extended Day, an additional 1.5 hours added to the standard school day to deepen academic study and co-curricular work, offered at no extra cost to parents.
Thai culture and language run through the curriculum by design. DBS frames this as a deliberate balance: international in outlook, rooted in Thai values. Mandarin is also taught across the school. The motto, Semper Ad Maiora, "always to greater things," appears on everything from staff recruitment packs to the headmaster's letters home.
Senior School Expansion
In December 2022, DBS formally opened two new senior school buildings and Araya Hall, a 665-seat auditorium built to international technical standards. The opening marked the completion of the school's original build-out plan. New facilities added at that point included a Design Technology suite, IT suite, senior library, Sixth Form centre, house common rooms, and art studios. Chairman Arn Pandejpong described the project as building "with our heart especially for the students."
Jonny Liddell succeeded McVeigh as headmaster in 2021. Liddell read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, completed his PGCE at King's College London, and holds the NPQH through UCL. Before DBS he served as Head of Upper School at Harrow Bangkok for six years, and earlier as Deputy Head at the British School of Milan and as Head of Science at the British School in Tokyo. He is a founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and is trained as an inspector with the Independent Schools Inspectorate.
Accreditation and Present Day
DBS holds accreditation from the Council of International Schools (CIS) and is an accredited member of the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), one of only four schools in Thailand to hold that status. It is also a Cambridge International School, a Pearson Edexcel approved centre, and an Oxford AQA approved centre, giving Sixth Form students access to qualifications from all three major British examining boards. Locally it is accredited by Thailand's ONESQA. The school joined FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia, in 2021.
Today DBS enrolls around 900 students aged two to 18, from Baby Dragons pre-nursery through Year 13 Sixth Form. Students come from more than 20 nationalities. The campus usable area exceeds 100,000 square metres and includes a swimming pool, three sports halls, a football pitch and athletics track, a climbing wall, a golf simulator, and the Araya Hall auditorium. At designed capacity the school is planned for approximately 1,600 students.