Britannica Shanghai: Orbital Education's third British school in the city

Britannica International School Shanghai opened in September 2013, its campus at 1988 Gubei Road placing it squarely in the Gubei neighbourhood of Puxi, close to the Xujiahui CBD. For its founder, Kevin McNeany, it was familiar territory. While running Nord Anglia Education, he had already established two British international schools in the city. Britannica, as reported by The PIE News at the time of opening, was the third British school licence the Shanghai Education Commission had granted him.

Origins

McNeany founded Nord Anglia Education in 1972 and led it to a London Stock Exchange IPO in 1997 before stepping down in 2005. He launched Orbital Education in 2008, headquartered in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire. Britannica Shanghai's legal entity was registered in September 2012; teaching began a year later.

Alun Thomas was the founding principal. The school was designed to accommodate up to 750 pupils aged three to eighteen, with an explicit focus on expatriate families seeking a smaller, British-ethos alternative to the large multi-campus schools already established in Shanghai.

Growth and identity

The school has remained on its original Gubei Road site. The campus holds science laboratories, sports facilities, and expressive arts spaces; a subsequent capital upgrade added a dedicated STEM centre. Britannica describes itself as the only fully British-owned, managed, and staffed school in Shanghai, with teachers drawn almost entirely from British-trained staff delivering the English National Curriculum from the Early Years Foundation Stage through to IGCSE and A Level.

That positioning, small classes and personalised learning rather than scale, has been consistent throughout Britannica's history in Shanghai. Average IGCSE class sizes sit at around ten students. The school prepares Year 10 pupils for IGCSE examinations a year earlier than the standard timeline, and its sixth-form pathway covers Cambridge CAIE and Pearson Edexcel A Levels across mathematics, sciences, humanities, and languages.

Students from around 40 nationalities are enrolled. The curriculum includes a Mandarin programme and broader study of China's culture, history, and geography, alongside an extensive world languages offering for native-language maintenance.

Accreditation

Britannica holds accreditation from COBIS (the Council of British International Schools) and CIS (the Council of International Schools). It is also registered as a British Schools Overseas school, inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate; its first BSO inspection took place in February 2025, and the school met all applicable standards. It is additionally a Cambridge International Examinations centre and was, at time of founding, the first international Amateur Swimming Association-affiliated swim school in China.

Results and present day

In the 2024-25 A Level series, the school achieved a 100 per cent pass rate, with 63 per cent of grades at A*-C. In the June 2026 IGCSE series, students produced results that the school described as placing it above the UK national average, with several individuals sweeping A and A* grades across all subjects. Every graduate in the 2024-25 cohort secured a place at their first-choice university.

Paul Farrell is the current principal. Current enrolment is 410, well within the campus's licensed capacity of 750 to 800. Orbital Education, the parent group, now operates British-curriculum schools across Spain, Hungary, Slovenia, Qatar, Ecuador, and Mexico, in addition to Shanghai.

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