Most international schools change slowly. BIS Shanghai Puxi is changing quickly. In 2026, the school is launching an A-Level program alongside its long-running IB Diploma, opening a new performing arts and sports building, and expanding its primary-school STEAM facilities. The twenty-year mark of the school's founding, which falls this year, coincides with the largest set of curriculum and facility changes in its history.
For a Taiwanese family considering BIS now, this means two things. First, the school is investing in its future in a way that suggests confidence and institutional stability. Second, some of what the school offers over the next two years will be new. The A-Level cohort enrolling in 2026 will be the first. The new facilities will open during the 2026-27 academic year. Families who join this window will experience the school both as it was and as it is becoming.
The expansion story is the lead, but what sustains a school of this kind is its teaching infrastructure. BIS Puxi operates inside the Nord Anglia Education network, which gives the school access to partnerships that a standalone school could not build alone. Juilliard informs the music and performing arts program, with teacher development programs and summer immersion in New York. MIT designs the STEAM challenges students work on through the year. IMG Academy supports the athletics program. UNICEF underpins the service learning curriculum.
These are not marketing decorations. Students in the Juilliard partnership take classes framed around the Juilliard curriculum. The STEAM centers, which sit inside a USD 2 million investment, are built specifically to host MIT-designed challenges. The difference between a school that says it has a partnership and a school that has integrated that partnership into the curriculum is visible in the student experience.
Academic results match the investment. The 2024 IB Diploma cohort averaged 34.5 points against a global mean of 30, the eleventh consecutive year BIS Puxi exceeded the global average. IGCSE results showed fifty-two percent of grades at A or A-star, against a global benchmark near twenty-one percent. Class of 2024 saw forty-five percent of graduates gain offers from QS Top 50 universities.
British International School Shanghai was established in 2005 as the city's international student population grew to a scale that could sustain several large British-curriculum schools. It opened on the current Minhang campus in Huacao Town, in the western part of greater Shanghai, and has operated there continuously since. Twenty years on, the school remains at the same site, and now sits inside the Nord Anglia Education network of more than eighty international schools worldwide.
Nord Anglia's signature partnerships define the BIS Puxi experience as much as the campus does. The Juilliard performing arts partnership entered the school's programming. MIT-designed STEAM challenges run through the year. IMG Academy supports athletics. UNICEF frames service learning. The network also provides teacher exchange and curriculum development that a single school could not fund alone.
The school's positioning has stayed consistent: excellence in academics, social development through collaboration, and the building of confidence and resilience. Twenty years is a relatively short institutional history by international-school standards, but BIS Puxi has the stability and depth of resource that normally takes longer to develop.
BIS Puxi teaches the English national curriculum from Early Years through Year 9, with adaptations for the international context. Years 10 and 11 follow IGCSE examination pathways through Edexcel or Cambridge. At Sixth Form (Years 12 and 13), students choose between the IB Diploma, which the school has offered for most of its history, and A-Levels, launching in 2026. Mandarin runs through all years as either a native or foreign-language option.
BIS Puxi publishes IB Diploma and IGCSE results each year. Both sit well above global benchmarks and have done for more than a decade. Figures below are the school's published results for the 2024 examination session, which is the most recent cohort with fully-released data.
BIS Puxi graduates matriculate primarily to UK universities, with strong flows to North America, Europe, and Asia. The 2024 cohort saw forty-five percent of graduates receive offers from QS Top 50 universities. Named destinations below are drawn from the school's published materials.
BIS Puxi accepts applications year-round. The formal process typically runs two weeks from first contact to offer, which is unusually quick by international-school standards. One eligibility requirement is non-negotiable: the student must hold a passport other than the People's Republic of China. This is a regulatory requirement affecting all Shanghai international schools.
BIS Puxi fits some Taiwanese families very well, and others less so. This is our honest reading of the match.
Shanghai is under two hours from Taipei. For families considering BIS Puxi, the proximity changes the shape of the decision. Harland's role is not to tutor your child at BIS. It is to help before and after the move: through the decision, through the preparation, and through the transition. Families who leave Taipei almost always keep studying with us remotely.
Families considering BIS Puxi often begin studying with us in Taipei to prepare for the British-system register and the IB pathway. Students who move to Shanghai usually continue with us remotely, often around IB Diploma subjects and UK university applications. A few of the programs families reach for most often.
A consultation with our Student Coordinator is the fastest way to think the decision through with someone who is not trying to sell you the school. We can talk about what moving to Shanghai looks like in practice, whether the British curriculum pathway suits your child, or how Harland can continue with them once they are there.