St Paul's Girls' School Brings Its London Ethos to Bangkok This August

Bangkok's international school market gained a significant new arrival this August as SPGS International School Bangkok opened for its first academic year. The school brings the ethos of St Paul's Girls' School, the 120-year-old London day school, to Thailand through a partnership with property developer Country Group Development PCL, which is investing THB 14.4 billion in the wider Rama 3 mixed-use site. According to Bangkok Online, the 9.1-acre campus includes a 600-seat auditorium, a black box theatre, professional recording studios, two swimming pools, a rooftop football pitch, and a Forest School.

The school is co-educational, accepting boys and girls from age two to eighteen, and is designed to accommodate around 1,800 students at full roll. For its inaugural year, enrollment covers Pre-Nursery through Year 6. The Senior School will follow from the 2027 to 2028 academic year. Founding Headmaster Leigh O'Hara, who spent 11 years as Deputy Head at St Paul's Girls' School London, is leading the launch.

What the curriculum looks like

Students follow an enhanced English National Curriculum through Key Stage 3, transitioning to iGCSE at Key Stage 4 alongside a set of School Directed Courses developed by the London school. Those courses, which cover Creative Technology, Drama, Music, Computer Science, and Art, are described by SPGS International as unavailable through any other school in the region. The Sixth Form will deliver the IB Diploma Programme.

The co-educational model is a deliberate departure from the founding school's girls-only tradition. St Paul's Girls' School in London, established in 1904, remains single-sex. SPGS International has chosen a mixed model for its overseas campuses, both in Chengdu and now in Bangkok, on the basis that local demand in those markets does not readily support single-sex provision at scale.

A crowded but growing Bangkok market

SPGS Bangkok enters a city that has seen several British boarding-school brands arrive in quick succession. Wycombe Abbey launched its Bangkok campus this academic year, Dulwich College opened its first Thailand campus this summer, and Glenalmond College announced a Phuket venture in 2026. That concentration of new arrivals reflects strong demand from both the city's large corporate and diplomatic expatriate population and an affluent Thai parent base that now forms the majority of the premium-tier market.

Country Group Development chief executive Ben Taechaubol described the partnership as reflecting the company's "commitment to creating exceptional developments that enrich lives and contribute to the future of Thailand." For SPGS International, Bangkok is its second international campus and its first in Southeast Asia. How quickly the SPGS name builds recognition among local families, who have many established British-curriculum alternatives to choose from, will determine how fast enrollment climbs toward that 1,800-student ceiling.