Kuala Lumpur · History
From Lake Gardens to Mont Kiara: Garden International School at 75
Founded in 1951 by the wife of a fire brigade chief, Garden International School is one of Malaysia's oldest British international schools, now educating 2,000 students across two Kuala Lumpur campuses.
Sally Watkins did not set out to build an institution. She was the wife of Lt. Col. F.F.C. Watkins, chief of the Kuala Lumpur Fire Brigade, and in 1951 she opened a small school in the Lake Gardens of the city, catering to the children of expatriates living in what was then the Federation of Malaya. The earliest records show 33 students on roll and two full-time British teachers. That was Garden School.
Origins
The school was one of the first international schools in the federation, and it filled a gap that mattered: British and other expatriate families working in colonial Malaya had nowhere else to send their children for an English-language education. The Lake Gardens site was modest, but the demand was real. Within four years the roll had grown enough to force a move.
On the Move
In 1955 the school combined its kindergarten and primary sections and relocated to 251 Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. That move was the first of several as the roll kept climbing. Over the following four decades the school shifted through a series of addresses across the Klang Valley, each time outgrowing its site. In January 1996 it settled at Jalan Kiara 3, off Jalan Bukit Kiara, in Mont Kiara. That campus, purpose-built for the school's scale, has been its home ever since. The school was among the first institutions to plant itself in Mont Kiara, at the time a largely undeveloped stretch of land on the city's northern edge.
Name and Ownership
The school traded as Garden School for decades before adopting its current name, Garden International School. It eventually came under the umbrella of Taylor's Education Group, one of Malaysia's largest private education conglomerates. In November 2021, global private equity firm KKR acquired a minority stake in Taylor's Schools, the group's K-12 division, which owns and operates Garden International School alongside five other international schools in Malaysia and Singapore. Taylor's Education Group retained controlling ownership and the existing management structure continued unchanged.
Curriculum and Accreditation
GIS follows the English National Curriculum from Nursery through to Year 13, with students sitting IGCSE examinations at the end of Year 11 and progressing to A Levels in the Sixth Form. The school is accredited by the Council of International Schools, a re-accreditation that was confirmed most recently in January 2025. It is also a member of FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia. The school has been recognised as an Apple Distinguished School and holds that status for the 2025 to 2028 programme term.
Present Day
GIS currently operates two sites in Kuala Lumpur: the main campus at Mont Kiara, which houses the primary and secondary school and a recently renovated Sixth Form Centre, and an Early Years Centre in Desa Sri Hartamas serving children from Nursery to Reception. Together the two sites educate around 2,000 students from more than 65 nationalities, aged three to eighteen. Principal Peter J. Derby-Crook MBE took up the role in August 2024. The school carries the motto Plus est en vous, a phrase that has followed it from the Lake Gardens to Mont Kiara across seven decades.