Twenty Years in Minhang: How BISS Puxi Became a Fixture of West Shanghai

The British International School Shanghai, Puxi opened in 2005 on a campus at 111 Jinguang Road in Huacao Town, Minhang District, placing it squarely in the residential heartland of expat west Shanghai. It was a Nord Anglia school from day one, joining a group that had been operating since 1972 and was by that point pivoting sharply toward premium international schools in Asia.

Origins and Parent Group

Nord Anglia Education was founded in 1972 by Kevin McNeany, initially to teach English as a foreign language. Through the 1990s and early 2000s the group diversified into nurseries and learning services before selling those businesses off and refocusing on international day schools. By 2008 that pivot was complete. The 2012 relocation of Nord Anglia's headquarters to Hong Kong signalled where growth would come from, and BISS Puxi, already three years old by then, sat at the centre of that China strategy. The group listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2014 before eventually returning to private ownership.

BISS Puxi was not Nord Anglia's first Shanghai school. The group's sister campus, Nord Anglia International School Shanghai in Pudong, is the longer-established presence on the east side of the river. The Puxi school was created to serve the large and growing expatriate community west of the Huangpu, where Minhang and the broader Hongqiao corridor had become the default landing point for families relocating to the city.

Curriculum and Accreditation

The school follows a single, continuous British pathway from age two to eighteen. Early Years runs under the English Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Primary adopts the National Curriculum for England, supplemented by the International Primary Curriculum. Lower Secondary continues on the English National Curriculum before students move into a two-year IGCSE programme at ages fourteen to sixteen. Post-sixteen, the school has offered the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme as its main university-preparation route. According to the IB Organisation's own records, BISS Puxi was authorised as an IB World School in May 2007, roughly two years after opening. The school announced in 2025 that A-levels would be added from August 2026, giving sixth-formers a second post-sixteen pathway.

On accreditation, the school holds membership with the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) and has renewed that accreditation, with the renewal statement highlighting standards in safeguarding and governance. Independent school directories also list COGNIA and CIS accreditation alongside COBIS, as noted by the International Schools Guide. The school is additionally a member of ACABIS and FOBISIA.

One structural feature that sets the Puxi campus apart from most British international schools in China is the Shanghai Dutch School, an integrated Dutch-language programme built into the timetable for Dutch-speaking students. Dutch lessons are embedded within the regular school day rather than offered after hours, and the programme runs its own curriculum aligned to Dutch and Belgian language standards from primary through secondary, allowing students to maintain mother-tongue literacy while studying for IGCSEs and the IB alongside their English-medium peers.

Academic Record

IBDP results have consistently exceeded the global average. In the 2021 sitting, three students achieved the maximum score of 45 points, and the graduating cohort averaged 38.4 points, five points above the worldwide mean. At IGCSE, more than half of the school's students have achieved A* or A grades, more than double the UK national average of 23 percent at that level. The school enters students for Cambridge International Examinations, and its IB subject menu is broad, running from Business Management and Economics through Theatre, Film, and Music to Dutch, Korean, and German A-level literature courses.

Nord Anglia Collaborations

Three group-level partnerships shape the co-curricular and professional development offer at BISS Puxi. The collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology brings STEAM methodology into classrooms and sends teachers to MIT for subject-specific training. The partnership with The Juilliard School in New York does the same for the performing arts, with Juilliard faculty and alumni visiting the school. A third collaboration with UNICEF frames the school's social impact work around the UN Sustainable Development Goals; students have represented the school at the High-Level Political Forum at UN headquarters in New York. Sports programming runs through a tie-in with IMG Academy, and Nord Anglia's Global Campus platform connects BISS Puxi students with peers across the group's eighty-plus schools for joint projects.

Leadership and Present Day

Andrew Lancaster has led the school as Principal since August 2019. He is a BISS Puxi parent himself and came to the role from within, having previously served as the school's Head of Secondary for four years, where he oversaw growth in both IGCSE and IBDP results, and before that as Head of Key Stage 3. In 2025 he received the Shanghai Magnolia Gold Award, the city's highest civic recognition for contributions by foreign residents, having earlier held the Silver award. The school currently enrols around 1,000 students drawn from more than fifty nationalities and operates as a co-educational day school. The campus has a maximum stated capacity of 2,000 students, leaving room for further growth. Facilities include twin gymnasiums, a 25-metre competition pool, a 20-metre training pool, dance studio, five tennis courts, an all-weather eleven-a-side football pitch, a Da Vinci Centre for STEAM work, a Music Technology Centre, and a dedicated IB Academy space.

Read the full The British International School Shanghai, Puxi profile →