Shrewsbury Bangkok's Chinese-English Bilingual Track Moves into Primary in Its Second Year
The Hanqing Bilingual Pathway at Shrewsbury International School Bangkok City Campus has graduated its founding class to Year 1, taking Thailand's only dual-language British curriculum track into Key Stage 1.
Shrewsbury International School Bangkok City Campus marked a formal milestone on 16 October when the founding cohort of its Hanqing Bilingual Pathway moved from the Early Years Foundation Stage into Year 1, entering Key Stage 1 for the first time. According to the Bangkok Post, the new Year 1 class includes families with connections to Thailand, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and China.
The Hanqing Bilingual Pathway launched at the City Campus in August 2025 as a 50-50 Mandarin-English immersion programme for children as young as three. From Year 1, native-speaking teachers for both English and Mandarin join the team alongside a specialist Chinese maths teacher, a model designed to develop fluency in both languages without treating either as secondary.
The only track of its kind at a British school in Thailand
The pathway's name, Hanqing, combines the Chinese characters for harmony and clarity. That framing reflects a deliberate market position: the school built the pathway for families seeking a British education with deep Mandarin development, a segment growing in Bangkok as mainland Chinese and Taiwanese families form an increasing share of international school enrolment.
Most British curriculum schools in Thailand offer Mandarin as a second language within a predominantly English-medium programme. The Hanqing Pathway operates as a full immersion strand, with both languages given equal weight from the earliest stages. It runs alongside the school's standard British curriculum stream at the City Campus, not as a replacement for it.
What the milestone means
The move into Year 1 matters because it is the first sign that the pathway can sustain continuity across year groups. A new bilingual track at a British school is a significant commitment for any family, particularly in a market where demand for this kind of offer remains more limited than in bilingual-dominant markets such as Hong Kong or Singapore. Families now have a complete first cycle to evaluate, including evidence of how pupils who started at age three progress into formal literacy and numeracy in two languages.
Shrewsbury Bangkok City Campus has not announced how far it intends to extend the pathway. A full primary-stage track would require the programme to advance through six more year groups to reach Year 6. What the school decides about Key Stage 2 will determine whether Hanqing becomes a sustained through-primary offer or a niche Early Years strand that stalls before it can demonstrate secondary-stage outcomes.