Dover Court Relaunches Early Years and Adds Secondary Capacity for August 2026

Dover Court International School in Singapore is marking one of its busiest programme years in recent memory. The British-curriculum school has launched NEST, a redesigned early childhood offer for children aged three to seven, and confirmed it will expand its secondary intake with additional Year 7 and Year 8 classes from August 2026. According to Sassy Mama Singapore, the programme blends the Early Years Foundation Stage with a Reggio-Emilia-inspired inquiry approach, centring on children's questions to guide projects across literacy, numeracy and other academic foundations.

What NEST adds to the early years offer

NEST, which stands for Nurturing Early Success Together, is the school's own framework developed for children from Nursery through to Year 2. The programme is delivered through play-based, inquiry-led pedagogy and will be supported from the 2026 to 2027 academic year by a new Discovery and Play Cove, a purpose-built outdoor learning environment for children aged three to seven. The school held an open house for prospective families on 12 May.

The early years relaunch is accompanied by a parallel move at secondary level. Dover Court has confirmed it is opening additional classes in Years 7 and 8 from August 2026, citing sustained demand. The school's admissions page notes that many year groups already operate at or near full capacity, and that sibling and returning family applications are prioritised before open places are offered more widely.

Results and context

The expansion comes as Dover Court publishes strong academic data for its most recent leavers. The Class of 2025 achieved an average IB Diploma score of 36, well above the global average of 30.5, with 54 percent of IGCSE grades awarded at A or A star. The school, part of the Nord Anglia Education group, describes itself as Singapore's only international school delivering a British curriculum within a fully inclusive model, a positioning that has increasingly drawn families looking for alternatives to more selective institutions in the city.

For the coming academic year, Dover Court will also welcome a new permanent principal in August 2026, with the current interim leader, Christopher Short, having stepped in following a leadership change. The combination of a new early years programme, secondary expansion, leadership transition and strong results data makes this one of the more active mid-cycle periods the school has seen.