From a single Beijing school to Shunyi's leading British campus

The British School of Beijing did not begin in Shunyi. It began in Sanlitun, opening in 2003 as part of Nord Anglia Education's first foothold in the Chinese capital, and the oldest British heritage school system in Beijing. Six years later, in 2009, the network expanded east into Shunyi District, planting a second campus in the expatriate residential belt that had grown up around the airport corridor.

Origins and the Sanlitun connection

When BSB Sanlitun opened in 2003, it and the new Shunyi site were run as a single institution under one BSB banner. That arrangement held for a decade. In 2013, the two campuses were administratively separated into distinct schools, each with its own identity, leadership, and roll. The split gave Shunyi room to grow as a full through-school from 18 months to 18 years, while Sanlitun focused on Early Years and Primary.

The Shunyi campus sits at South Side, No. 9 An Hua Street, Shunyi District, registered with the Beijing Education Commission under the International Department. Its maximum capacity is set at 1,500 students, a figure that reflects the scale of the expatriate community it serves. By 2011, with the two campuses still operating jointly, the combined BSB roll stood at 1,150 students from 50 countries, with British pupils making up roughly a quarter and mainland European nationalities accounting for another 30 percent.

Curriculum and identity

BSB Shunyi follows the English National Curriculum through primary and lower secondary, leading into IGCSE at Year 11. Post-16, students have historically taken the IB Diploma Programme, which has been the school's main pre-university qualification. More recently, the school expanded its Post-16 offering with the launch of A-Level pathways, giving students greater flexibility in how they progress beyond Year 11. A German Primary Programme runs alongside the main English-medium curriculum for native German-speaking students.

Academic results at IB Diploma level have been strong. Two students achieved a perfect score of 45 in both 2021 and 2022. In recent years, two in three IBDP students have achieved point totals high enough to qualify for the world's top 100 universities. Graduates have taken up places at Cambridge, Imperial College London, UCL, UC Berkeley, NYU, the University of Toronto, NUS, and Seoul National University, among others.

As a Nord Anglia Education school, BSB Shunyi carries the group's three institutional collaborations: with MIT on a STEAM programme, with The Juilliard School on performing arts, and with UNICEF on global citizenship and sustainable development. These are network-wide partnerships, but they shape the co-curricular and enrichment offer at Shunyi directly. The school also runs over 300 co-curricular activities and hosts its own Model United Nations conference, BRITMUN, annually.

Accreditation and affiliations

In May 2025, the school announced accreditation by the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), formalising its standing within the British international schools network. It holds memberships of ACAMIS, AoBSO, and FOBISIA, and is an IB World School. The school is also registered as an ASDAN examination centre.

Leadership

Jayne Needham became Principal of BSB Shunyi in August 2021, having spent more than 30 years in education across the UK, Dubai, Bahrain, and China. She led the school through COBIS accreditation before handing over to Bevan Graham, who assumed the principalship on 1 August 2024. Graham had joined BSB Shunyi in August 2021 as Head of Secondary and Vice Principal, arriving from Nord Anglia International School Shanghai Pudong, where he had been Head of Secondary. He has been in China since 2007 and has worked directly with the International Baccalaureate since 2015 as a workshop leader and visiting team member across the Asia Pacific region.

Present day

BSB Shunyi currently enrols students from over 60 nationalities, with a maximum capacity of 1,500. The campus in the Tianzhu development zone of Shunyi covers a combined EYFS, Primary, and Secondary site, with facilities that include an air-purified sports dome, indoor swimming pool, cricket nets, and dedicated arts and science classrooms. The school was named one of the five most popular international schools in Beijing for 2025 by the International Schools Database. It sits within Nord Anglia's broader Beijing network, which now includes three campuses across the capital.

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