Shanghai · History
From Minhang suburb to twenty years of British schooling in Puxi
The British International School Shanghai, Puxi opened in 2005 on a campus in Huacao Town where it has remained ever since, growing into one of the largest British schools in mainland China.
BISS Puxi opened in 2005, three years after Nord Anglia had already planted a British school on the other side of the Huangpu. Harland Education's profile of the school explains the timing plainly: Shanghai's international population had grown to a scale that could sustain several large British-curriculum schools simultaneously. The Pudong campus — then trading as the British International School of Shanghai, Pudong — had been running since 2002. Puxi followed as demand from the western suburbs made a second site viable.
Origins
The school opened on the Minhang campus in Huacao Town, in the western part of greater Shanghai, and has operated from that site continuously since. The address, 111 Jinguang Road, Huacao Town, Minhang District, has never changed. It was a purpose-built campus from the outset, and subsequent investment has added to it rather than replaced it.
Nord Anglia Education, which had been majority-owned by Baring Private Equity Asia since 2008 and listed briefly on the New York Stock Exchange in a $300 million IPO in 2014 before being taken private again, has owned the school throughout its history. In March 2025, a new ownership consortium led by EQT, the Stockholm-based investment group, completed a $14.5 billion acquisition of the whole Nord Anglia group, leaving BISS Puxi under the same brand umbrella but with new ultimate shareholders.
Growth and community
Enrolment today stands at around 1,000 students, drawn from more than 50 nationalities. The school runs more than 300 after-school clubs and activities, with typical class sizes of roughly 21 in Primary and Secondary, and around 15 in Early Years.
One distinctive feature of the school's community is the Shanghai Dutch School, a Dutch-language programme fully embedded within the BISS timetable. Dutch-speaking pupils, primarily from Dutch and Belgian families based in Shanghai, attend Dutch language lessons during the regular school day with no additional tuition fee. The programme follows a curriculum comparable to those used in the Netherlands and Belgium, keeping students ready to re-enter education at home should their families return.
Curriculum and accreditation
The school follows the National Curriculum for England from Early Years through Lower Secondary, moves into IGCSE at Upper Secondary (Years 10 and 11), and offers the IB Diploma Programme for Years 12 and 13. From August 2026 the school is adding A-Levels alongside the IB Diploma, making it the first cohort to take that route at Puxi. The school has confirmed the A-Level launch publicly on its news pages.
On accreditation, the school holds COBIS membership and in August 2025 renewed that accreditation, receiving COBIS Beacon Status, an award given when a school's outcomes across teaching, leadership, and welfare are judged exemplary. It is an authorised IB World School for the Diploma Programme and an approved Cambridge IGCSE and Pearson Edexcel centre. Pearson has recognised the school with both a Pioneer Award and a 10th Anniversary Award.
Nord Anglia's group-level partnerships shape teaching across all its schools, including Puxi. Subject teachers travel to MIT for STEAM-specific professional development; performing arts staff train with The Juilliard School in New York; and sports coaching draws on the IMG Academy programme. The school's social impact work is organised in partnership with UNICEF around the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with students taking part in the annual Global Challenge at the UN High-level Political Forum in New York.
Results and present day
Academic results have been consistent. The 2024 IB Diploma cohort averaged 34.5 points against a global mean of 30, marking the eleventh consecutive year the school exceeded that global average. At IGCSE, 52 percent of grades in 2024 were A or A*, against a global benchmark of around 21 percent. Forty-five percent of the class of 2024 received offers from QS Top 50 universities.
The school's twentieth anniversary year, 2025, coincided with its largest programme of curriculum and facility changes. A new performing arts and sports building is due to open during the 2026-27 academic year, alongside expanded primary STEAM facilities. The roll sits at 1,000 students. The school is a co-educational day school and does not offer boarding.
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