Dulwich Shanghai Merges Two Campuses Into One College This August

The Pudong and Puxi campuses of Dulwich College Shanghai are formally merging into a single institution this month. From August 2026, both sites operate together as Dulwich College Shanghai under one Head of College, according to the Alifa Edtech guide to Dulwich and Dehong schools in China, ending more than two decades of separate administration between the two schools.

The Pudong campus opened in 2003 as the first Dulwich College International school outside the United Kingdom, founded through a partnership between a group of Shanghai-based parents and Dulwich College London. The Puxi campus followed in 2016, on a purpose-built site in Minhang. Together they serve one of the largest concentrations of British-curriculum students in mainland China, spanning the full age range from Toddler through Year 13.

How the year groups are dividing

Under the new structure, Puxi retains students from Toddler through Year 9, while Year 10 and Year 12 pupils move to the Pudong campus from August 2026. Year 11 students remain at Puxi for a further year to complete their IGCSE courses, then transfer to Pudong in August 2027 once that cycle finishes. By the 2027 to 2028 academic year, the full senior school will be concentrated at Pudong.

Fees remain unchanged under the merged structure and existing scholarship holders carry over without interruption. The school has described the consolidation as intended to create a stronger and more coherent post-16 pathway, with students in Years 10 to 13 clustered together at a single site rather than managed across two separately run campuses.

What it means for families

For families with children below Year 10, the immediate practical effect is limited. Puxi keeps its configuration and no physical campus is closing. The more significant change falls on those preparing to enter the senior years, who will now begin their IGCSE and IB Diploma studies at Pudong rather than continuing at the campus where they completed junior schooling.

The restructure follows a wider pattern across the international school sector in China, where operators have sought to streamline multi-site operations under unified governance. At Dulwich, whose China footprint spans nine campuses from Shanghai to Hainan, the Shanghai consolidation brings the two oldest schools in the group under a single management structure for the first time.