China's first British school, still leading from Pudong after 24 years

In 2002, Pudong had no international schools. Nord Anglia Education changed that by opening a campus on Hunan Road in the Kangqiao area, officially inaugurated by Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP. The school launched under the name British International School of Shanghai, Pudong, with a small building and 50 pupils. It was, at that moment, both the first British school in China and the first international school in the Pudong New District.

Origins

Nord Anglia Education itself traces to 1972, when Kevin McNeany founded it in northern England to teach English as a foreign language. By the early 1990s the group had pivoted toward running full-scale international schools, opening its first in Warsaw in 1992 before expanding into Asia. The Pudong school was its most consequential early move in China, arriving at the moment the Pudong New District was transforming into Shanghai's commercial and residential engine, and expatriate families were arriving in numbers with no local British schooling option.

Growth and a new name

The school grew rapidly. A three-storey building with a gymnasium and catering facilities followed in 2004. By 2007 the campus had expanded again, adding two further three-storey blocks for secondary students, a theatre, a swimming pool, and a dojo. A 2013 refurbishment created new conceptual classroom spaces and a Skywalk bridge connecting two buildings.

In 2015 the school changed its name, as confirmed by the Pudong District government, dropping the British International School of Shanghai branding to become Nord Anglia International School Shanghai, Pudong. The rebranding reflected the group's global expansion and unified identity across its network; the school's history and heritage within Shanghai were unchanged. Its sister school, the British International School Shanghai, Puxi, operates on the other side of the river.

Curriculum and identity

NAIS Pudong runs the English National Curriculum from Early Years through to Year 9, following the Early Years Foundation Stage for its youngest pupils and the International Primary Curriculum framework in primary. Secondary students sit IGCSEs at Years 10 and 11. Post-16 provision is the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme; the school is a fully authorised three-programme IB World School. In 2025, the graduating cohort averaged an IB score of 37, with a top score of 43.

Mandarin is taught from Foundation Stage and is part of the daily offering for all pupils from Pre-Nursery onwards. The school draws on Nord Anglia's group-level partnerships: an MIT Maker Space sits on campus, and teachers receive subject-specific training annually with MIT, The Juilliard School, and Apple. UNICEF and IMG Academy feature in the co-curricular and wellbeing programmes. The school lists more than 140 co-curricular activities.

Campus facilities include a 25-metre indoor swimming pool, two large indoor sports halls, tennis courts, a dojo, a performing arts centre, and grass and artificial-turf football pitches. The natural grass pitch is, the school notes, one of very few in Pudong.

Present day

The school currently enrols around 700 pupils aged 2 to 18, drawn from over 40 nationalities. Diane Vaughan leads the school as principal. Graduates have gone on to universities in Europe and North America; alumni include students who entered Michigan, Toronto, and other leading institutions with IB scores in the mid-40s. As China's longest-running British international school, NAIS Pudong sits within a Nord Anglia global network of more than 80 schools and 80,000 students across 35 countries.

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