First British school in China, still going strong after 24 years

On a district that was still largely construction site, a school opened in 2002 that would outlast every British competitor in China. According to the Pudong district government, Nord Anglia International School Shanghai, Pudong was established that year as the first international school in Pudong New District, taking students from one to eighteen years of age. It was also, by the school's own account, the first British school anywhere in China.

Origins

The school did not open under its current name. It launched as the British International School of Shanghai, Pudong, known as BISS Pudong. The ceremony was notable: Patricia Hewitt, then a minister in the Blair government, cut the ribbon. The school started with roughly 50 pupils on a small campus.

Behind it stood Nord Anglia Education, a group with roots going back to 1972, when Kevin McNeany founded the company in northern England to teach English as a foreign language. By the 1990s the group had shifted its focus toward premium international schools, targeting the expat communities arriving in fast-growing Asian cities. Shanghai's Pudong district, newly opened to foreign investment, was exactly the kind of bet the group was making.

Growth and Campus Expansion

Fifty pupils did not stay fifty for long. By 2004 the school had grown enough to require a three-storey purpose-built facility with its own gymnasium and catering provision. Three years later, in 2007, two further three-storey buildings went up for secondary students, and the campus acquired a theatre, a swimming pool, and a dojo. A second phase of construction in 2013 added conceptual classroom spaces and a walkway bridge connecting two of the main buildings.

The address settled in the Kangqiao area of Pudong, near the site that would later become home to the Shanghai Disney Resort. The campus now runs to separate Early Years, Primary, and Secondary buildings, two indoor sports halls, an indoor 25-metre pool, natural grass and artificial-turf football pitches, a renovated theatre, and a Performing Arts Centre. The natural grass pitch is noted as one of very few in Pudong.

Name Change and Group Identity

In 2015, the school renamed itself Nord Anglia International School Shanghai, Pudong. The change reflected the group's consolidation of its global brand: Nord Anglia Education had by that point listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in March 2014, and was building a coherent identity across more than 80 schools worldwide. The Pudong school's sister school under the same group, the British International School Shanghai in Puxi, retains the older BISS name.

Curriculum and Accreditation

The academic pathway runs from the Early Years Foundation Stage through the English National Curriculum in primary, IGCSE in Years 10 and 11, and the IB Diploma Programme in Years 12 and 13. The school holds full authorisation as a three-programme IB World School. Mandarin is taught from Foundation Stage and sits as part of the daily timetable from Pre-Nursery onwards.

The group's partnerships shape how the curriculum is delivered. Nord Anglia has exclusive collaborations with MIT, The Juilliard School, UNICEF, and IMG Academy. At NAIS Pudong that translates into an MIT Maker Space on campus, Juilliard-linked performing arts input, and staff development programmes that send teachers to train with MIT and Juilliard. The school lists more than 140 co-curricular activities, including a Model United Nations programme and a Social Impact Programme.

Results and Present Day

In 2025 the graduating cohort averaged an IB Diploma score of 37, against the global average of 30.58. The school reports a top score of 43 in the same cohort. Graduates have gone on to universities across Europe and North America, with the school citing the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto among recorded destinations.

Current enrolment stands at around 700, drawn from more than 50 nationalities. Diane Vaughan is principal. The school takes pupils aged two to eighteen and describes itself as inclusive, with specialist learning-support staff available to assess additional needs at the admissions stage. As the longest-running British international school in China, NAIS Pudong enters its 25th year with a campus substantially larger than anything its first 50 pupils would have recognised.

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