The Perse Singapore Completes Its First Stretch to IGCSE Level

The Perse School Singapore is welcoming its first Year 11 cohort this August, a milestone that marks the school's transition from a promising newcomer to a full-cycle secondary institution. According to WhichSchoolAdvisor, the school opened for Nursery through Year 6 in January 2025, added Years 7 to 10 in August 2025, and is now completing the lower secondary cycle with Year 11, its first year of Cambridge IGCSE examinations.

The addition makes The Perse Singapore one of the few British schools in the city to have opened and reached examination year within a single 18-month window. Students in Year 11 will sit IGCSEs in core subjects including English language, mathematics, and the sciences, alongside four option papers chosen to reflect individual preferences. That structure follows the standard Cambridge International curriculum framework and aligns the school with established British peers across Southeast Asia.

A school built in stages

The school is operated by Futuris Education under a licence from The Perse in Cambridge, one of England's most academically selective independent schools. The licence was awarded following a competitive tender backed by the Singapore Economic Development Board, which has been working to diversify the international school market and ensure sufficient capacity for expatriate families. The campus at 58 Chestnut Drive, on the former site of Chestnut Drive Secondary School in Bukit Timah, currently teaches around 700 students.

Capacity stands at up to 1,500, leaving substantial room to grow. The school is headed by CEO Johan Stromsater, previously of the Canadian International School in Singapore, and Principal Daniel Cross, who spent 24 years at the parent school in Cambridge before relocating. Both the scale of the campus and the seniority of the leadership signal that the EDB expects the Perse brand to anchor a meaningful share of Singapore's British school market across the next decade.

The road to A Levels

Years 12 and 13, offering Cambridge A Levels, are scheduled to follow in subsequent academic years. The timing matters for families who enrolled early in the expectation of a full pathway: the first cohort to sit A Levels at The Perse Singapore is likely to do so around 2028, giving the school its first published university placement data shortly after. In a Singapore market where sixth-form results are closely scrutinised, that data will be the clearest test of whether the Cambridge brand translates outside its home county.