Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi: West Shanghai's British School Turns Ten

Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi opened its doors in August 2016 as a purpose-built campus serving the western side of the city. It was the second Dulwich college in Shanghai, joining the original Pudong campus that Fraser White and Karen Yung had launched in 2003 as the first overseas school established by a British public school. Where Pudong served expatriate families in the east, Puxi was built for those settled in Minhang and the city's western suburbs.

Origins and Context

The parent network, Dulwich College International, traces its authority to Dulwich College in south-east London, founded by the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn on 21 June 1619 with letters patent from King James I. That institution's governors, led at the time by Eddie George, then Governor of the Bank of England, backed a 100-year global partnership with White and Yung to replicate the Dulwich model in Asia. By the time Puxi opened, the international network had grown to include campuses in Beijing, Suzhou, Seoul, and Singapore. Puxi was, depending on the source, the eighth or ninth school in that family.

David Ingram was appointed founding Head of College, joining the Dulwich team in preparation for the 2016 opening. He brought 22 years of leadership experience from other international schools across Asia. The founding admissions director, Wonnie Sayama, joined the same year and became one of the defining figures of the school's early community-building.

Campus and Facilities

The campus sits at 2000 Qian Pu Jing Road, Maqiao, in the west of Minhang District. It covers 40,000 square metres and was purpose-built to Dulwich's specifications, with architecture by Broadway Malyan. Facilities include a 50-metre Olympic-sized swimming pool, a 2,000-square-metre fully air-filtered triple gymnasium, all-grass football and rugby pitches, a 500-seat theatre, black-box theatre spaces, an orchestra room, an outdoor amphitheatre, a film studio with editing suite, and a range of science, IT, and robotics laboratories. The school caters to students from age 2 to 18, running from toddler through Year 13.

Curriculum and Identity

The curriculum follows the English National Curriculum from Year 1 through Year 9, enhanced for an international student body. Students in the Early Years Foundation Stage follow a dual-language programme in Mandarin and English. In Years 10 and 11 students sit IGCSEs; Years 12 and 13 lead to the IB Diploma Programme. Mandarin is taught daily across the school in streamed pathways, ensuring students at every level engage with the local language and culture.

The school joined FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia, in 2019. Accreditation from the Council of International Schools followed, and the school subsequently completed the joint CIS and Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation process, receiving confirmation from both bodies. Dulwich Puxi also became the first school in China to pursue accreditation as a "Curiosity Approach" setting, a framework for early childhood learning that places inquiry and open-ended play at the centre of provision.

In a separate curriculum distinction, the school became the first in China to implement the Design Engineer Construct! learning programme, a cross-disciplinary STEM initiative developed in the UK. The programme was delivered in partnership with Broadway Malyan, the architectural practice that originally designed the campus.

First Graduates and Academic Record

Because the school opened in 2016 taking students from toddler to the upper years of secondary, its first full IB Diploma cohort sat exams and graduated in 2023. That inaugural class achieved an average of 37.71 out of 45 points in the IBDP, well above the global average of 30.24 points, with a 100% pass rate. The result placed Dulwich Puxi second overall in the China IB League Table for 2023, according to the school's own reporting. Graduates from that cohort have gone on to universities including the University of Chicago, Duke University, and Columbia University.

Present Day

The school enters the 2025-26 year with approximately 1,400 students on roll, led by Dr Mark Hardeman as Interim Head of College. As noted on the Dulwich College International website, the school holds CIS and WASC accreditation and is a FOBISIA member. In 2024, Hillhouse Investment Group acquired the DCI network's schools in Asia from the previous operator, Education in Motion, continuing the group's expansion across the region. Dulwich Puxi marks its tenth year of operation in 2026.

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