Canadian International School (CIS) is the school in this cluster that a Taipei family with a Mandarin-literate child usually asks about first, and for a good reason. From Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6 it runs a Chinese-English bilingual program in which the day alternates between the two languages, each class has a native speaker of each, and mathematics and the units of inquiry are taught in both. Most Singapore international schools teach Mandarin as a subject. CIS teaches half the primary years in it, and a bilingual pathway carries on into the Middle Years and the Diploma. For a family relocating from Taipei on an Employment Pass, eligibility is open, and a Taiwan passport is a foreign passport here.
Two things a Taiwan family should weigh before the bilingual program decides the matter. The school does not state whether it teaches simplified or traditional characters. Its reading program comes from a Beijing publisher and its students sit the Youth Chinese Test, both of which point to simplified, so a child literate in traditional characters is switching scripts and the family should confirm this with the school directly. And CIS is an IB school through and through, running the Primary Years, Middle Years, and Diploma programs, so a family from an American, Advanced Placement school in Taipei is also switching systems, as it would be at UWCSEA. This guide sets out the bilingual program, the fees the school publishes in full, and the honest reading of its results.
The Taipei families who ask us about CIS have usually decided one thing already: they do not want the move to Singapore to cost their child the Chinese literacy built at home. The bilingual program is the reason CIS is on their list, and the question they bring is what it means in practice. How much of the day is in Chinese. Whether their child, arriving with traditional-character literacy and a Taiwanese vocabulary, is placed as a native speaker or a learner. What happens to the bilingual stream after Grade 6. And whether the characters the school teaches are the ones their child already knows.
We work with relocating families remotely, the same way we teach families across roughly eight countries, and often before the move while the decision is open. What we see is the transition on both sides. In English, the school assesses proficiency from senior kindergarten and places a child who needs support into a paid English-language program, so readiness matters. In Chinese, a child moving from traditional to simplified characters has a real but manageable adjustment, and the bilingual program's own assessment rises toward native fluency by Grade 6, so the entry point shapes how a child is placed. Holding both languages steady across the move is the work we do.
The orienting facts, each drawn from the school's own materials and checked in September 2026. Figures are the school's own, in Singapore dollars.
CIS is a for-profit IB continuum school, authorized for all three IB programs and accredited by WASC for Grades 7 to 12, with Cognia accreditation and Singapore's EduTrust certification. One distinction to keep straight, because the abbreviation invites it: the school is called CIS, and it is not accredited by the Council of International Schools, the accreditation body that also goes by CIS. It teaches the IB, not Advanced Placement or A Levels. And, unusually for the region, it publishes its fees in full, which is why this guide can carry them.
CIS publishes a full fee schedule, with separate rates for its English program and its bilingual programs. The tables below are the school's own, in Singapore dollars, inclusive of GST, for the 2026 to 2027 year.
The Chinese-English bilingual program costs more than the English program at every grade band, by roughly S$1,800 to S$5,200 a year. The one-time fees are all non-refundable, and there is no refundable debenture, which some Singapore schools do charge and which a family cannot recover here on leaving.
Inclusive of GST. Billed in two semesters.
| Grade band | English program | Chinese-English bilingual |
|---|---|---|
| Nursery, half day | S$20,780 | |
| Nursery, full day | S$30,280 | |
| Pre-K to Senior Kindergarten | S$40,760 | S$42,520 |
| Grades 1 to 3 | S$41,840 | S$47,060 |
| Grades 4 to 6 | S$45,520 | S$50,020 |
| Grades 7 to 10 | S$51,240 | Bilingual pathway within the English rate |
| Grades 11 to 12 | S$53,500 | Bilingual pathway within the English rate |
Source: CIS fee schedule 2026 to 2027, dated March 2026. Checked September 2026. The French-English bilingual track is priced at the English program rate. A separate Foundation program for students not yet meeting the English requirement runs S$56,880 for Grades 3 to 6 and S$62,480 for Grades 7 to 9.
| Item | Amount | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | S$1,000 | Per application, non-refundable |
| Confirmation fee, one time | S$5,500 first child, S$4,500 second, waived from the third | On acceptance, non-refundable |
| Facilities fee, one time | S$4,300 | New for 2026 to 2027, non-refundable. An earlier draft of the schedule showed S$4,500 |
| Refundable debenture | None | No refundable deposit or bond |
| English language support | S$9,240 senior kindergarten, S$9,500 Grades 1 to 10 | Per year, where assessment shows a need |
| Learning support | Tier 1 free, Tier 2 S$4,140, Tier 3 S$8,500 | Per year, by assessed need |
| Sibling discount | 10 percent third child, 15 percent fourth on | Tuition only |
| Devices | Family provides | iPad Grades 3 to 6, MacBook Grades 7 to 12 |
| Bus, lunch, uniform, exams, trips | Not itemized in the schedule | Directed to the school's fee calculator |
For a first child entering the Chinese-English bilingual program at Grades 1 to 3 in 2026 to 2027, the tuition of S$47,060 plus the application fee of S$1,000, the confirmation fee of S$5,500, and the facilities fee of S$4,300 comes to S$57,860 before English support, devices, bus, or lunch. These totals are Harland's arithmetic on the school's own figures, shown so a family can budget the real first year rather than the headline line.
| Ages served | 2 to 18, Nursery to Grade 12, on the Lakeside campus |
|---|---|
| Enrollment | Around 3,100 from more than 80 nations on one of the school's pages, more than 60 nationalities on another. No single dated figure is published |
| Curriculum | IB Primary Years Programme to Grade 6, Middle Years Programme Grades 7 to 10, Diploma Programme Grades 11 to 12. A WASC-accredited high school diploma alongside |
| Bilingual program | Chinese-English, Pre-K to Grade 6, half the day in each language, two teachers per class. A bilingual pathway continues in the Middle Years and Diploma |
| Chinese, character variant | Not published by the school. Materials from a Beijing publisher and the Youth Chinese Test point to simplified |
| New senior entry | Grades 9 and 10 until the last Monday in February. Grade 11 only, in the first two weeks of the year. No Grade 12 entry |
| Accreditation | IB World School for all three programs. WASC, Grades 7 to 12. Cognia. EduTrust certified. Not accredited by the Council of International Schools |
| Admissions | Rolling for kindergarten to Grade 8, subject to places. Waitlists in some year groups. Holistic candidate pool with sibling priority |
| Eligibility | Foreign pass holders open. PRs open. Citizens aged six and over need an MOE approval letter |
| Boarding | None in-house. Available through a third-party boarding house from age 12 |
| IB results | The school publishes its cohort average only as a graphic. Its stated 38.9 for the Class of 2026 is a selective-school comparison, not the cohort average |
Where a row reads "not published," the fact does not appear on any page the school publishes. The school's own pages give two different enrollment and nationality counts, and both are shown rather than merged.
CIS grew from five students to one of Singapore's larger international schools, and two facts about its history shape a family's read of it today: its campus, and who owns it.
The school opened in 1990 as the Canadian Overseas College with five students, took its present name a year later, and moved through several sites before consolidating on the purpose-built Lakeside campus in Jurong West, which opened in 2012. A second campus at Tanjong Katong, in the east, served the early and primary years for a period, but the school's own website now lists only Lakeside. Reports quoting the school describe the Tanjong Katong campus closing in 2023 when its lease was not renewed, with its students moving to Lakeside. The school does not state this on its site, which no longer lists the campus, so a family that has seen Tanjong Katong mentioned elsewhere should treat Lakeside as the school. A new junior wing opened there in 2023.
CIS is a for-profit school. Financial reporting in 2020 described its acquisition by a Hong Kong-listed education group from private-equity owners, and the school's own site does not prominently describe its ownership, so a family for whom governance matters should ask. Its vision is to unleash the potential of every individual so they can own their future, and its stated values are collaboration, curiosity, creativity, generosity, and respect. It describes itself as academically inclusive rather than selective, which is consistent with its published entry process and distinguishes it from the highly selective schools on a Singapore shortlist.
CIS runs the full International Baccalaureate continuum, and inside it the bilingual program that is the reason most Taiwan families look at the school. Understanding how the two fit together is the heart of the decision.
The school teaches the IB Primary Years Programme to Grade 6, the Middle Years Programme in Grades 7 to 10, and the Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12, alongside a high school diploma accredited by WASC, and from 2025 an extended pathway that lets a student mix IB, Advanced Placement, and diploma courses. It is not an AP-only, A Level, or British-curriculum school, so a family coming from an American school in Taipei is changing systems, as it would be at UWCSEA, and a family who wants British A Levels should look at Tanglin instead.
The bilingual program is the distinctive part, and it is more thoroughgoing than the Mandarin-as-a-subject most schools offer. From Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6, a child in the Chinese-English program alternates between the two languages day by day, with two qualified teachers in each class, one a native English speaker and one a native Chinese speaker, and with mathematics and the units of inquiry taught in both languages while the arts and physical education run in English. Chinese literacy is built through a leveled reading program of more than a hundred storybooks and five daily Chinese sessions, and students are grouped by proficiency, so the program is designed for native speakers and learners alike. After Grade 6 the bilingual pathway continues into the Middle Years, with bilingual mathematics and humanities taught in Chinese and assessed in English, and into the Diploma, where a Chinese-English language and literature course and a bilingual Theory of Knowledge lead to the IB Bilingual Diploma, which 37 students earned in the class of 2026. English-program students take daily Chinese or French from Pre-Kindergarten. The one thing the school does not say is which characters it teaches. Its reading materials come from a Beijing publisher and its students sit the Youth Chinese Test, a simplified-character exam, so a Taiwan family should assume simplified and confirm.
CIS publishes its results in a way that rewards a careful reader, and this guide reads them carefully rather than repeating the headline figure.
The school's results page displays its IB figures largely as graphics, and the readable number it leads with, 38.9 for the class of 2026 and 38.7 for the class of 2025, is labelled as the average of its top 40 percent of students compared with selective schools, a benchmark the school defines as students at or above the sixtieth percentile. That is a comparison figure for the upper part of the cohort. It is not the graduating class's average, and the school does not publish the whole-cohort average in readable form. A family comparing CIS with schools that publish a cohort average, as UWCSEA and Tanglin do, should not set the 38.9 against those numbers, because they measure different things.
What the school does state plainly matters. Two students scored 44 in the class of 2026, 37 students earned the IB Bilingual Diploma that year, and the school reports that more than 79 percent of its teachers hold multiple degrees or postgraduate qualifications. Its cumulative university acceptances from 2011 to 2025 run to 201 in the United States, 135 in the United Kingdom, 85 in Europe, 49 in Canada, 49 in Asia, and 25 in Australia and New Zealand, with named destinations including Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley, Toronto, the National University of Singapore, and Peking University. These are cumulative acceptances across fifteen years, not a per-class destination record, and the school notes the information may change without notice. Read them as evidence of reach, and ask the school directly for the current cohort's average.
Admissions are rolling for kindergarten through Grade 8, subject to places, and the school states that demand is high and waitlists exist in some year groups. Eligible applicants enter a candidate pool and are selected holistically as places open, weighing the balance of the class, languages spoken, prior schooling, and siblings already at the school or applying alongside. Grades 9 and 10 close on the last Monday in February. The Diploma Programme is tightly gated: it admits only into Grade 11, and only during the first two weeks of the school year, with no Grade 12 entry, because the Diploma runs as one continuous two-year course. Mid-year entry is possible up to Grade 10 where a place exists, but not into the Diploma.
Two assessments shape a family's plan. English proficiency is assessed from senior kindergarten through Grade 10 and places a child into one of six acquisition phases, and a child who needs support enters the paid English-language program, which is not offered in Grades 11 and 12, so an older applicant must already be proficient. The bilingual program has its own Chinese assessment, and its requirements rise with the grade, to native or near-native ability in both languages by Grade 6. For a Taiwan child arriving with strong Chinese but in traditional characters, how that assessment reads the child is the practical question to put to admissions. Grade placement is by age at the end of August, and the school requires the last three years of school records among its documents.
Harland is not a school and does not replace CIS. We are a 1-on-1 tutoring academy, and we work with relocating families remotely, often before the move, in the three places the schooling decision creates real work for a family: the two-language transition, the English assessment, and the Diploma years.
Yes, if the child holds one of the passes the school requires before starting: a Dependant's Pass or permanent residency, a Student's Pass, or, for Singapore citizens aged six and over, a Ministry of Education approval letter. A Taiwan passport is a foreign passport for this, so a family on an Employment Pass has open access. The school starts the pass application only after it has offered a place.
It offers a Chinese-English bilingual program from Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6, alternating English and Chinese daily with two teachers per class, and a bilingual pathway continues into the Middle Years and Diploma years. The school does not state whether it teaches simplified or traditional characters. Its materials come from a Beijing publisher and its students sit the Youth Chinese Test, which point to simplified, so a family with a child literate in traditional characters should confirm directly.
For 2026 to 2027 the English program runs from S$40,760 in the kindergarten years to S$53,500 in Grades 11 and 12, and the Chinese-English bilingual program costs more, S$42,520 to S$50,020 through Grade 6. One-time fees are a S$1,000 application fee, a S$5,500 confirmation fee for a first child, and a S$4,300 facilities fee, all non-refundable. There is no refundable debenture. All figures are the school's own, in Singapore dollars.
The full IB continuum: the Primary Years Programme to Grade 6, the Middle Years Programme in Grades 7 to 10, and the Diploma Programme in Grades 11 and 12, alongside a WASC-accredited high school diploma. It is not an AP-only, A Level, or British-curriculum school.
Admissions are rolling for kindergarten to Grade 8, subject to places, with waitlists in some year groups and a holistic candidate pool. Grades 9 and 10 close on the last Monday in February. The Diploma Programme admits only into Grade 11, and only in the first two weeks of the school year, with no Grade 12 entry. English is assessed from senior kindergarten, and the bilingual program has its own Chinese assessment.
Our Student Coordinator speaks with relocating families regularly, often before the move, and can help you think through the bilingual program, the character question, the English assessment, and how to keep a child's two languages steady across the move. We work with families remotely. We start by listening.