From Sanlitun to Shunyi: Beijing's longest-standing British school

The British School of Beijing has its roots in Sanlitun, where Nord Anglia Education opened the first campus in 2003. Within six years, demand from the expatriate community concentrated in Beijing's northeastern suburbs pushed the school to expand. According to Wikipedia's entry on the school, both the Sanlitun and Shunyi sites were initially run as a single institution before being separated into distinct schools in 2013.

Origins and Separation

The Shunyi campus opened in 2009 at South Side, No. 9 An Hua Street, Tianzhu Development Zone, Shunyi District, placing it squarely within the residential enclave favoured by diplomatic and corporate expatriate families. At that point the two campuses, Sanlitun and Shunyi, still operated under the single banner of The British School of Beijing. The administrative separation into two distinct schools came in 2013. Sanlitun subsequently narrowed its age range to Early Years and Primary, while Shunyi took on the full age range: 18 months through to Year 13.

By 2011, when both campuses were still counted as one, the combined roll stood at 1,150 students drawn from 50 countries. British students made up roughly 25 percent of the total, with mainland Europeans accounting for around 30 percent and North Americans forming the third-largest group. The Shunyi campus was already the larger of the two sites, and its maximum capacity was set at 1,500 students.

Curriculum and Identity

BSB Shunyi follows an enhanced English National Curriculum from Early Years through to Year 11, where students sit their IGCSEs. Post-16 pathways include the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and A Levels. A German Primary Programme runs alongside the main curriculum for native German-speaking students, reflecting the sizable German community settled in Shunyi. The school is registered with the Beijing Education Commission under the International Department and is licensed as an expatriate school through the Ministry of Education, meaning enrolment is restricted to students holding foreign passports with an appropriate visa.

On the accreditation side, the school is inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, an organisation approved by the UK Government Department for Education, and holds accreditation as a British Schools Overseas. It is also an IB World School, authorised to deliver the IB Diploma Programme. In May 2025, the school announced it had also achieved accreditation from the Council of British International Schools (COBIS), adding a further independent quality benchmark.

As a Nord Anglia school, BSB Shunyi draws on the group's institutional partnerships. Teachers are trained through resources developed with MIT, UNICEF, and The Juilliard School. The Juilliard collaboration, formally introduced in 2016, shapes the school's music programme directly: every student aged five and above learns an instrument, with around 30 different musical courses available alongside private tuition. STEAM provision draws on MIT-designed interdisciplinary project work. A Nord Anglia Global Campus platform connects students with peers across the group's 80-plus schools worldwide.

Results and Present Day

The Shunyi campus operates at its maximum capacity of 1,500 students, drawn from more than 60 nationalities. The school's average IB Diploma score stands at 37 points, against a global average of 33. In both 2021 and 2022, two students achieved a perfect IBDP score of 45. Graduates have secured places at Cambridge, Imperial College London, UCL, UC Berkeley, NYU, the University of Toronto, and Seoul National University, among others.

Bevan Graham became Principal in August 2025, succeeding Jayne Needham, who had led the school through its COBIS accreditation and several years of strong academic results. Graham had joined BSB Shunyi in 2021 as Head of Secondary and Vice Principal, having previously served as Head of Secondary at a Nord Anglia school in Shanghai. He was appointed to the Asia Pacific IB Educator Network in 2015 as a workshop leader and visiting team member. The campus itself includes an air-purified sports dome, dedicated performing arts spaces, and science and design technology facilities set across a single combined EYFS, Primary and Secondary site.

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