Founded
1993

One of Singapore’s established international schools

Curriculum
Australian + IB

IB PYP → Australian Curriculum → IGCSE → HSC or IB Diploma

Calendar
January–December

Southern-hemisphere school year — the outlier in Singapore

Years
2 months–Year 12

Infant care through graduation on one campus

Location
Lorong Chuan

Single campus beside Lorong Chuan MRT

Ownership
Cognita

Part of the global for-profit schools group

The short version

The short version

The Australian International School (AIS) teaches roughly 2,300–2,475 students from more than 50 nationalities on a single campus at 1 Lorong Chuan, taking children from two months old — it runs an infant-care programme — through to Year 12.

Founded in 1993 and owned by the Cognita schools group, it builds from the IB Primary Years Programme and the Australian Curriculum through Cambridge IGCSE, then splits in Year 11 into a choice of the New South Wales Higher School Certificate or the IB Diploma.↗↗

For an expat family, the practical summary is this: AIS is the natural harbour for Australian and New Zealand families because its January–December school year matches home — no mid-year arrivals, no half-year gaps when you repatriate.

For everyone else, that same calendar is the single biggest decision factor: transferring in or out of AIS means crossing a six-month offset against almost every other school in Singapore. Fees sit in the premium band, EAL support is billed on top, and the results record in both exit pathways is published and solid.

What the school is

A Cognita school with an Australian spine

AIS is part of Cognita, the global for-profit schools group — a structural difference from Singapore’s not-for-profit schools such as Tanglin Trust or UWCSEA, and a shared ownership with Stamford American down the road.

Cognita ownership shows up in the polish: a single, heavily invested campus, an infant-care programme that feeds the Early Years, and corporate-style admissions and billing machinery.↗↗

The school positions itself around pathway breadth rather than a single exam system: five curricula across the age range, more than 55 subject choices in the senior years, and a stated 300-plus co-curricular activities.

It describes itself as the only school in Singapore combining the Australian Curriculum, IGCSE and the IB — a claim that holds because no other school here teaches the NSW HSC.↗

One structural detail matters for globally mobile families: AIS is a fully accredited IB World School for the PYP and Diploma Programme, so a child can ride the IB track the whole way and never touch the Australian system at all.

The Australian spine is an option, not an obligation — but the calendar applies to everyone.↗

The January–December question

The calendar: AIS’s superpower and its trap

AIS runs the southern-hemisphere school year: Term 1 starts in late January and the year ends in December, against the August–June pattern at nearly every other international school in Singapore.

Billing follows the same rhythm — fees are invoiced half-yearly in advance, Semester 1 (January–June) payable by 10 October of the preceding year and Semester 2 (July–December) by 10 April.↗↗

For families arriving from or returning to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, this removes the most painful transition cost in international schooling: the child who either repeats or skips half a year.

For families who might later move to a British-, American- or IB-calendar school — in Singapore or elsewhere — it builds in exactly that cost. A July leaver from AIS has finished a full school year; an August starter elsewhere has not yet begun one.

Plan the exit before you celebrate the entry.

Two cash-flow rules catch families out. First, course fees are not pro-rated for mid-term starts or early withdrawals — join in November and you pay the full semester slice per the contract terms.

Second, the fee year resets every January, so a fee increase lands mid-way through a northern-calendar planning horizon, not at the tidy August boundary most relocating families budget around.↗

Academics in practice

HSC or IB: two exit doors, both published

The defining academic fact is the dual exit. In Years 11–12 students choose the NSW Higher School Certificate — the same credential sat in Sydney, moderated by NESA — or the IB Diploma.

That makes AIS the closest thing Singapore has to an Australian sixth form, and it means an Australian-curriculum child never has to switch systems to reach an Australian university.↗

Results are published annually on both tracks. In 2025 the IB cohort averaged 34.9 points against a global average of 29.3, with 16% scoring 40 or above, 28% scoring 38 or above and 41% earning bilingual diplomas; the top score was 45.

On the HSC side, the combined cohort averaged an ATAR of 85, with 40% at 90+, 28% at a 95+ equivalent and 22% earning NESA High Achiever awards. AIS is non-selective, which frames those numbers differently from a selective school’s.↗↗

The school markets 100% university acceptance and 99% admission to a top-choice university, naming Melbourne, Cambridge, Stanford and NUS among destinations.

Treat the percentages as marketing framing — “top choice” is undefined — but the underlying point is fair: both credentials are mainstream currencies, and the bilingual-diploma rate signals genuine language depth rather than token second-language teaching.↗

Fees and the real cost

Fees for 2026–27, and the costs stacked around them

AIS publishes calendar-year fee schedules. Published figures for 2026/27 put annual tuition at S$31,356 in Nursery, rising through S$42,420 in Kindergarten 2–Grade 2 and S$43,692 in Grades 3–5 to S$50,400 in Grades 6–9 and S$53,148 in Grades 10–12, all inclusive of 9% GST.

New students add a S$920 application fee and a S$4,450 enrolment fee, both one-time and non-refundable; the school’s 2026 preparatory-course schedule also lists a S$6,200 facility fee and a S$370 annual technology fee.↗↗

English-language support is where the AIS bill can move most.

EAL is charged per semester on top of tuition: S$6,504 for the Beginning programme, S$4,478 for Transitioning, S$6,504 for the Year 6–8 co-teaching and Year 9–10 senior-studies programmes, and S$7,358 for the Intensive English Stream — up to roughly S$14,700 a year at the intensive end.

Students are assessed before enrolment and reviewed each semester, and the school says most exit EAL within one to two years.↗

Around the edges: sibling discounts run at 10% of tuition for a third child and 20% for a fourth, with 50% off application and facility fees from the third child; credit-card payments carry a 2.5% convenience fee; and infant care for the very youngest runs at S$3,170 a month on the 2025 schedule, with the mainstream enrolment fee waived for children who continue into Early Years after six months.

The bus is termly and distance-banded — and see below for the rules that come with it.↗↗↗

Admissions and daily logistics

Rolling admissions, a send-back fee, and boarding at Oldham Hall

Admissions run year-round against the January start, with English-proficiency assessment where needed and the school’s preparatory courses (the English Preparation Course and the Preparatory Course for Secondary) acting as bridging streams into mainstream classes.

For Singapore Citizen children, AIS is explicit about the local rule: the school — not the parent — initiates the MOE exemption application, processing typically takes four to eight weeks, and an exemption granted for one school does not transfer to another.↗↗

The bus rules deserve their own paragraph because families discover them late. Early Years and Prep students must use a school-approved child safety restraint on the bus, and if an authorised guardian is not at the drop-off point for a child in Year 2 or below, the school charges a S$50 “send-back” fee.

Bus fares are charged termly and banded by distance from Lorong Chuan.↗

For families posted to Singapore without a parent in residence full-time, the Admissions Booklet references boarding arranged via Oldham Hall — one of the city’s established student boarding houses. Costs and age limits are not published on the AIS site; ask admissions for the current arrangement before counting on it.↗

Our readConfidence: Medium

The obvious choice on the Australian axis — with a calendar that cuts both ways

Our confidence is Medium: AIS publishes its billing terms, EAL fees, results and bus rules first-party, and its 2025 outcomes in both exit pathways are documented on its own site.

What we could not verify first-party this pass is the full mainstream tuition table — the school’s Fee Schedule 2026 PDF was not retrievable, so headline tuition here comes from a reputable aggregator cross-checked against the school’s own published 2027 semester figures, which are directionally consistent.

Confirm your child’s exact year-level figure with admissions before budgeting.

The families AIS suits: Australians and New Zealanders who want curricular and calendar continuity with home; families who want the IB with a safety net of a second credential; and those who value a through-school that starts at two months old.

The families it suits less well: anyone likely to transfer later into an August-start school without appetite for a half-year adjustment, and budget-sensitive families whose child needs intensive EAL — the per-semester surcharges are among the steeper in the city.

If the calendar works for you, AIS is a well-run, transparent operation; if it might not, that is the conversation to have first.

Take these to the school

Questions that move beyond the tour script

The calendar and transitions

  1. If we may later move to an August-start school (in Singapore or elsewhere), how does the school advise managing the half-year offset for our child’s year level?
  2. For a January entry, when are places typically confirmed, and is there meaningful mid-year (July) availability in our child’s grade?
  3. How are fees pro-rated, if at all, for a student starting after a semester begins — and what notice period applies to withdrawal?

Academics and pathways

  1. How are students guided toward the HSC versus the IB Diploma in Year 10, and roughly how many choose each in the current senior cohort?
  2. May we see the most recent results broken down by pathway, with cohort sizes?
  3. What level of EAL support would our child be assessed into, what would it cost per semester, and what does a typical exit timeline look like?

Cost and logistics

  1. Beyond tuition, what should we budget in year one for the facility fee, technology fee, EAL if assessed, bus, uniform and camps?
  2. Which bus routes serve our shortlisted neighbourhoods, and what restraint and drop-off rules apply for our child’s age?
  3. What are the current Oldham Hall boarding arrangements — eligibility, cost and supervision?

Continue your research

Choose your next step

Sources and further research

Where to verify and keep reading

We favor direct links to the exact page or document a family may need next. Access dates matter because admissions, tuition, leadership, and programs change.