The honest picture — and a correction
Ayutthaya does not have an international school. We went looking specifically to disprove that, and could not: neither of the two independent international-school censuses returns a single school in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province, and Thai-language searches turn up only Thai-curriculum schools. That tracks with what Ayutthaya is — a UNESCO-listed historic town with low living costs and easy Bangkok access, drawing retirees, history-minded long-stayers and industrial-corridor workers rather than a large corporate-relocation population.
But the advice that follows from it, in every guide we could find including our own earlier version of this page, is wrong. Having established there is nothing local, guides send families south to Bangkok — roughly 80km into a market where fees start near four hundred thousand baht and run past a million. They omit entirely that at a broadly comparable radius to the east, Saraburi province holds 4 international schools, 3 of them with boarding, at published fees in the low hundreds of thousands. Both independent censuses agree on the number and the names. One of the 4 sits directly on Phahonyothin Road, the same trunk route that serves the eastern side of Ayutthaya province.
The omission is structural rather than careless: the directories file those schools under “Saraburi”, so a search for Ayutthaya returns nothing and a search for Bangkok returns nothing relevant. The cluster is invisible from either end unless you look sideways. For the wider relocation picture see the Ayutthaya hub and cost-of-living guide.
The four routes families actually take
None is objectively best. The right one depends on your child’s age, your budget, and how much commuting, boarding or relocating you will accept — but the first row is the one no other guide gives you.
| Route | Best for | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| East — the Saraburi international cluster (4 schools) | Families who need a genuine international curriculum and want to stay in or near Ayutthaya | The option nobody tells Ayutthaya families about. Saraburi province holds 4 international schools — both independent censuses agree on the number and on the names — of which 3 board. Published fees sit in the low hundreds of thousands of baht rather than Bangkok's four hundred thousand to over a million. Saint John Mary sits directly on Phahonyothin Road, the same trunk route that serves the eastern side of Ayutthaya province, and is fully WASC accredited with Advanced Placement taught on campus. |
| South — commute or board at a Bangkok international school | Families who specifically need a British, IB or large-campus international school and can absorb the cost | Roughly 80km, about an hour to ninety minutes by car outside peak traffic, or a similar trip by SRT train. Bangkok has the depth Saraburi does not — IB World Schools, British curricula to A-Level, big campuses. It also costs several times more, and the daily run is demanding enough that most families in this bracket end up boarding or relocating. This route is real and right for some families; it simply should not be the only one on the page. |
| Local — Thai private, Catholic or state schools in Ayutthaya itself | Younger children, mixed Thai-foreign families, or as a bridge while a longer-term decision is made | Ayutthaya has substantial Thai-curriculum provision, and one of it runs a real English Program: Jirasart Witthaya, the largest private school in the town, teaches English, Science and Mathematics in English inside an otherwise Thai timetable. It stops at Mathayom 3 (about age 15), so a second school is required either way. Cost is not access — Thai EP and state-school entry usually runs through an examination sat in Thai. |
| Homeschool or an accredited online curriculum | Families wanting an English-medium internationally recognised curriculum without relocating or commuting | Genuinely common in Thai provincial towns. Options include Thailand's registered home-based education route through the local Education Service Area Office, or an accredited British or American online curriculum. Worth noting that one of the Saraburi schools, California Prep, is built around blended campus-and-home study by design, which sits between this route and a conventional school. |
The Saraburi cluster — where each school stops, and what a leaver holds
All 4 run to eighteen on paper, which is unusual and genuinely good. What separates them is the exit: what qualification a leaver actually holds, whether the final years are taught on a campus, and whether the school boards. Read this table before the fee comparison — for a family that may move country again, the leaving qualification is the decision, and it is invisible in every price list.
| School | District | Stops at | Leaving qualification | Boarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saint John Mary International School | Mueang Saraburi | Pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 (the school's own wording) | A US high school diploma on the State of California curriculum, with Advanced Placement available for college credit. | Yes — confirm dormitory vs homestay |
| California Prep International School | Kaeng Khoi | Roughly 3 to 18, K-12 | The school describes a K-12 American programme on the California curriculum and publishes graduating cohorts by school year. | Yes — confirm dormitory vs homestay |
| Adventist International Mission School | Muak Lek | Roughly 2 to 18, preschool to Grade 12 | An American high school programme to Grade 12. | Yes — confirm dormitory vs homestay |
| John Wyatt Montessori — Saraburi Campus | Nong Don | Sources disagree — one census says from age 3, the other from 18 months. Both agree it runs to 18. | None named. | No — day school only |
Accreditation, authorisation, affiliation — three different claims
These get collapsed into one word constantly, and the difference is exactly what a family is buying. A whole-school accreditation assesses the school. An examination-board authorisation means it may enter pupils for those exams. A membership is neither. And “none named on the school’s own site” is a fourth state, distinct from “not accredited” — two of these 4 schools are in it.
| School | Whole-school accreditation | Religious character |
|---|---|---|
| Saint John Mary International School | ACCREDITED: fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (ACS WASC) -- stated in words and displayed as a badge on the school's own accreditation page. | The school states it is recognised as serving students of various races and religions, and its published mission is built on integrity and service to others rather than a doctrinal statement. |
| California Prep International School | None named on the school's own public pages. | Present, but not labelled on the front of the school. |
| Adventist International Mission School | ACCREDITED: Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). ACCREDITED (denominational): the Accrediting Association of Seventh-day Adventist Schools, Colleges and Universities (AAA). | Explicit and published, which is the honest position. |
| John Wyatt Montessori — Saraburi Campus | None named on the school's own public pages. | None published. |
In Ayutthaya itself — including the English Program we previously said we could not find
This page used to tell readers we had “not been able to confirm which, if any, Ayutthaya schools currently offer” an English Program. That was wrong. Jirasart Witthaya — the largest private school in central Ayutthaya, with over two thousand pupils and a standing body of foreign teachers — runs an English Program teaching English, Science and Mathematics in English alongside the Thai national curriculum, and says so on its own site. Two caveats that matter more than the headline: it is a stream inside a Thai curriculum, not an English-medium education, and it stops at Mathayom 3, around age 15.
Joseph Ayutthaya School (โรงเรียนยอแซฟอยุธยา) is the established Catholic private option in Tambon Samphao Lom, teaching Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 9 on the Thai national curriculum. Beyond the private sector, the province’s state schools are where the overwhelming majority of Ayutthaya’s children are actually educated — profiled here for a complete picture rather than as realistic routes for a newly arrived, non-Thai-speaking child.
One warning that applies to all of them: cost is not access. Thai English Programme streams and state secondary places are cheap, and they are gated by an entrance examination sat in Thai on a fixed national timetable, which closes the route to most newly arrived foreign children regardless of budget. Ask what a non-Thai-speaking child would actually face at admission before you plan around the fee.
Before you shortlist: a school on the most-copied Ayutthaya guide does not exist
The most widely syndicated English-language page on Ayutthaya schooling recommends “Saraburi International School” as the nearby international option. No school of that name appears in either independent census, which between them return exactly 4 schools for Saraburi — all named above, none called that. The same page offers Ascot International School as accessible from Ayutthaya; Ascot is in Bangkok, the opposite direction from Saraburi, and does not serve the commute it is being offered for.
This pattern is now common enough across Thailand that it is worth a standing test. Before you shortlist any school you found in an English-language listicle, check four things: does it have its own domain; does it have a findable street address; does its telephone answer; and does its own homepage carry a closure or rebranding notice. A school that fails any of the four is not on your list yet. That fourth test is not hypothetical — a school on families’ shortlists elsewhere in Thailand ceased operations in July 2026 while directories carried on listing it as enrolling.
Where to live changes with your choice
This is the practical consequence of the direction problem. If you choose an eastern school, live on the highway-facing side of the province — the Wang Noi and industrial corridor or Bang Pa-in and the riverside east — because those sit on the Phahonyothin axis that runs towards Saraburi. If you choose Bangkok, prioritise proximity to the Asian Highway and Ayutthaya train station, or reconsider basing the family in Nonthaburi or northern Bangkok. If you choose a local school or homeschooling, Ayutthaya’s own character matters more than any commute: the walkable historic island or the Hua Ro and station district. See the full Ayutthaya areas guide.
The highest-value question you can ask this week: Saint John Mary publishes a school van route list as a downloadable PDF. We could not read the routes, and we will not guess. If a route reaches the Wang Noi or Bang Pa-in side of Ayutthaya, the strongest international school within reach becomes a day school for a large part of this province — and the whole calculation changes. Ask them before you sign anything.
Ayutthaya schooling questions
Is there an international school in Ayutthaya?
No. We tried hard to disprove this and could not: neither of the two independent international-school censuses returns a single school in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province, and Thai-language searches return only Thai-curriculum schools. That part of the conventional advice is correct. What is not correct is the conclusion usually drawn from it — that your only option is Bangkok.
Where is the nearest international school to Ayutthaya?
East, in Saraburi province, not south in Bangkok. There are 4 international schools there — Saint John Mary in Mueang Saraburi, California Prep at Kaeng Khoi, Adventist International Mission School at Muak Lek, and John Wyatt Montessori at Nong Don — and 3 of them offer boarding. Saint John Mary is on Phahonyothin Road, the trunk route that also serves the eastern edge of Ayutthaya province, and is the most complete of the four: fully WASC accredited, Ministry-recognised, running Pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 with Advanced Placement, SAT and TOEFL testing on campus.
Why does every other guide only mention Bangkok?
Because of how the directories file things. Both censuses list those schools under "Saraburi", a city these guides do not cover, so a search for Ayutthaya returns nothing and a search for Bangkok returns nothing relevant. The cluster is invisible from either end unless you go looking sideways. BAANLYY's own guide made exactly this mistake until this revision, and we would rather say so than quietly fix it.
Are there English Program (EP) schools in Ayutthaya?
Yes. This page previously said we could not confirm whether any Ayutthaya school ran one; that was wrong and it has been corrected. Jirasart Witthaya, the largest private school in central Ayutthaya, runs an English Program teaching English, Science and Mathematics in English alongside the Thai national curriculum, and employs a standing body of foreign teachers. Note two things before treating it as a substitute for an international school: it is a stream inside a Thai curriculum rather than an English-medium education, and it stops at Mathayom 3, around age 15.
How much cheaper is Saraburi than Bangkok?
Substantially, though we deliberately publish no per-school fee figures — they change every year and a stale number is worse than none. As an indication of the gap rather than a quotation: the independent censuses place the Saraburi schools in the low hundreds of thousands of baht a year, while Bangkok's international market starts around four hundred thousand and runs past a million. Note also that the two censuses currently disagree with each other about California Prep's range, which is exactly why we point you at each school's own current schedule instead.
Is boarding realistic from Ayutthaya?
It is the route that makes the eastern cluster work for most families, and 3 of the 4 Saraburi schools offer it. One caution learned elsewhere in Thailand: when a school says boarding, ask whether it means a dormitory on campus or a homestay placement with a partner family. Saint John Mary's own boarding pages describe supervision by "dorm deans or homestay parents", which covers two materially different arrangements. Directories record both as "boarding: yes".
How far is it to commute to a Bangkok international school from Ayutthaya?
Roughly 80km, about an hour to ninety minutes by car outside peak traffic, or a similar trip by regular SRT train from Ayutthaya station. That is workable occasionally but a demanding daily school run, which is why most families choosing Bangkok end up boarding, using a school bus route where one reaches this far, or basing the family closer to the school. Measure your own door-to-door drive at 07:00 on a weekday before committing — across every city BAANLYY covers, that measurement has never once been kinder than the map estimate.
Is homeschooling legal for foreign families in Thailand?
Thailand's Ministry of Education permits registered home-based education ("Home School") through the local Education Service Area Office, and many expat families separately use accredited British or American online curricula. Requirements, recognition and any visa implications vary by situation — confirm current rules with an education consultant or the relevant school board before committing.
This guide is general information for relocation planning, not admissions, legal or education advice. BAANLYY does not rank, endorse or accept payment from schools, and publishes no per-school fee figures — they change annually and a stale number is worse than none. School options, curricula and regulations change; confirm current details directly with each school or the Ministry of Education.
International schools near Ayutthaya
International schools in and around Ayutthaya, ordered by distance from the city centre and sourced live from Google Maps. Ratings and review counts update automatically — tap any name for directions, hours and contact details.
Distances are straight-line from the city centre, for rough comparison only. Listings are provided by Google and are not endorsements. BAANLYY does not manage these businesses.
Sources & References
- Ministry of Education, Thailand
- Saint John Mary International School (Mueang Saraburi) — official site
- California Prep International School (Kaeng Khoi, Saraburi) — official site
- Jirasart Witthaya School (central Ayutthaya, English Program) — official site
- Joseph Ayutthaya School (Catholic private school, Pre-K–Grade 9) — official site
- International Schools Database — every international school in Saraburi and nearby
- doris — international schools in Saraburi, Thailand
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
Plan the rest of your move.
Schooling route decided — now match a neighbourhood to your routine and line up banking and your visa.
Hero photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.
