Bangkok
Highgate School Opens Its First Overseas Campus in Thailand
The 460-year-old London independent has partnered with Siam Motors Group to launch a British curriculum school in Chonburi, marking its first step beyond the UK and into Asia's fast-growing education market.
Highgate International School Thailand welcomed its first students this August in Chonburi province, roughly 80 kilometres south-east of Bangkok, marking the first time in the school's near-460-year history that the London independent has established an overseas campus. according to The PIE News, the school was developed in partnership with Siam Motors Group and the Phornprapha family, one of Thailand's most prominent business dynasties, under a model that mirrors Highgate's three-school structure in London.
The campus sits on a 27-acre site near the Siam Country Club and opens initially as a co-educational Pre-Prep and Junior School for children aged two to eleven. A Senior School and boarding provision are planned for subsequent years, with a long-term capacity of up to 1,400 students. Teaching follows the English National Curriculum, with students in due course working towards IGCSEs and A Levels.
The catchment and the demand picture
The Chonburi location places the school within the Eastern Seaboard's manufacturing and automotive corridor, where corporate expatriate families represent a meaningful slice of international school demand. But the premium British fee tier in Thailand increasingly targets local affluent Thai families too, and the Siam Motors partnership is in part a signal to that domestic market. Annual fees at comparable British curriculum schools in Thailand's top tier typically run between 700,000 and 1,100,000 baht.
The founding head is Ben Keeling, who brings close to two decades of international school experience, most recently as principal of Shrewsbury International School in Hong Kong. His appointment reflects a broader pattern among British school operators entering Asia: recruiting heads with existing credibility in the region rather than importing UK-based leadership without a regional track record.
A crowded season for British school arrivals in Thailand
Highgate's opening adds to a notable cluster of British independent school arrivals in Thailand through the 2025 to 2026 cycle. Wycombe Abbey, Dulwich College, and Rugby School have all opened or confirmed Thai campuses in the same period. The pace of entry reflects sustained demand from both expatriate and local professional families for the British sixth-form pathway, even as some analysts have flagged that the Thai market is approaching saturation in certain segments.
Whether the Chonburi catchment can support a 1,400-place boarding and day school in the longer term depends partly on how quickly the industrial corridor's international population grows, and partly on how effectively the school attracts Thai families willing to commute or board. For now, the opening itself is the milestone. Highgate is a late but high-profile arrival in a market that continues, in fits and starts, to attract the British educational establishment.