Lanna International School Thailand (LIST).

The campus, and how you actually get there

Address: 166 Moo 10, Ban Waen, Hang Dong, Chiang Mai 50230

An established suburban campus in the Hang Dong belt, with the full Pre-Nursery-to-Year-13 age range on one site — which means a child can complete the entire British pathway without changing school, unusual outside the two largest Chiang Mai schools. The unification is recent and the site has been built out around it: the Secondary division moved onto the Hang Dong campus during 2023–24, and the school's own annual report for that year records a redesigned main gate and traffic and gate-security system, an enlarged cafeteria, expanded playgrounds, three dedicated STEAM labs and a robotics programme running from Early Years to Secondary on VEX equipment, with a covered basketball court, covered drop-off, a futsal pitch and an innovation building listed as the next phase.

Getting there: No urban rail. Lanna sits in Ban Waen, Hang Dong, south of the city — typically 20–30 minutes from the Old City, quicker from Mae Hia, Hang Dong village and the Canal Road corridor, and a long haul from Mae Rim or San Sai in the north. If you want a British curriculum in Chiang Mai, the southern suburbs are effectively where you live.

Chiang Mai has no urban rail — no BTS, no MRT, no commuter metro. The city's railway station serves intercity trains to Bangkok, and the long-discussed Chiang Mai light-rail scheme remains unbuilt, so every school run here is a car, a motorbike, a red songthaew, a Grab or the school bus. Read the Chiang Mai getting-around guide and the Chiang Mai area guides before you commit to a neighbourhood.

Smoke-season air quality at this campus

Lanna's provision is partial and the school is specific about which parts. Its 2023–24 annual report records positive air pressure systems installed in Buildings G and H and in key public areas, explicitly for Chiang Mai's pollution season — and lists installing a positive air pressure system in Early Years under work still to come. Read that pairing carefully: as at that report the youngest children's rooms were on the plan rather than on the system. That is a far more useful thing to know than a general assurance, and it makes the building-by-building question concrete. Ask which buildings are covered today, when Early Years was completed, and whether the sports and dining spaces are included.

Northern Thailand's burning season runs roughly February to April, when agricultural burning and forest fires push Chiang Mai high into the global air-quality rankings — IQAir placed the city among the ten most polluted in the world on 4 March 2026, with AQI above 150 and PM2.5 the dominant pollutant. For a family with young children this is a legitimate school-selection criterion, not a footnote. Our Chiang Mai air-quality guide covers the season in full.

The curriculum pathway

How a child progresses through the school, stage by stage:

• Early Years — IEYC framework with Reggio Emilia-inspired practice, from Pre-Nursery
• Primary — the International Primary Curriculum (IPC), with an Accelerated English Programme (AEP) stream for children arriving with limited English
• Lower secondary — Years 7–9 Key Stage 3: English, maths, science, geography, history, computing, art, STEAM, PE, music, drama, PSHE, Thai and either French or Chinese
• Cambridge IGCSE — Years 10–11
• Cambridge AS and A-level — Years 12–13, examined through Cambridge International and Edexcel; 17 different A-level programmes were offered in 2023–24
• Alongside A-levels: the Cambridge International Project Qualification (CIPQ), the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award, and an IELTS and SAT preparation strand

Accreditation & memberships

Accreditation is the closest thing to an objective quality signal in international schooling — it means an outside body has inspected governance, teaching and safeguarding. BAANLYY does not rank schools, so this is what Lanna International School Thailand (LIST) and its accrediting bodies publish, not our verdict:

• Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) — full member school since May 2024, confirmed on FOBISIA's own member register and the only member school in northern Thailand
• FOBISIA states that Lanna is accredited by an approved inspectorate, without naming which one
• Cambridge International examination centre since 2005
• Delivers the National Curriculum of England
• Edexcel (Pearson) examinations also administered
• Licensed by the Thai Ministry of Education

Boarding and the size of the school

Boarding: A day school — Lanna does not operate boarding.

Scale: One of the larger Chiang Mai international schools by longevity and roll, reporting students of around 31 nationalities speaking approximately 17 languages. The school's own annual report put the roll at 864 students as at June 2024; its website now describes a school that has grown from 30 children at founding to nearly 1,000, so treat 864 as the last figure we can date rather than as today's number. The same report gives the shape behind the total, which is more useful than the total: the primary years are the school's centre of gravity at roughly 65–74 children per year group, and the sixth form is small — 35 in Year 12 and 29 in Year 13, taught in an average Year 12/13 class of six. Faculty numbered 90, the largest groups British (45) and American (12). Roll and nationality figures move every year and schools report them differently — treat these as indicative and ask the admissions office for the current numbers.

Who this school tends to suit

Families on a British pathway — particularly those moving from the UK or from another Cambridge school elsewhere in Asia — who want IGCSEs and A-levels rather than an American diploma or the IB. Its thirty-plus years in the city make it the established British option, and the breadth of the sixth form is the practical argument: seventeen A-level programmes taught in classes averaging six students is unusual at this scale anywhere, let alone in northern Thailand. It also suits a family arriving with a child whose English is still developing, because the Accelerated English Programme is a staffed stream rather than an ad-hoc arrangement.

This is our editorial read for relocation planning, not a ranking or a recommendation — and no school pays to appear on BAANLYY. Visit shortlisted campuses before you decide.

Living near Lanna International School Thailand (LIST)

The southern corridor is the catchment. The BAANLYY area guides for this run:

Check the school's bus catchment before you sign. Chiang Mai's international schools cluster in two distinct belts — the northern one around Mae Rim and San Sai, and the far larger southern one through Hang Dong, Mae Hia and Saraphi — and picking a home in the wrong belt turns a fifteen-minute run into a daily hour.

What to confirm directly with the school

BAANLYY deliberately does not publish per-school tuition figures: they change annually, schools publish their own current schedules, and a stale number is worse than none. Take this list to the admissions office:

• Which A-level subjects are running in the year your child enters sixth form. This is not a generic caution here: the school reported 17 A-level programmes across a Year 12 of 35 and a Year 13 of 29, so option blocks are built around the students who actually enrol. Ask for the current year's timetable, not the prospectus list.
• Which inspectorate accredits the school, and when the current term runs to. We have closed part of this question and want to be exact about the rest. Verified: Lanna is a full member school of FOBISIA, admitted in May 2024 as the federation's 100th member and the only member in northern Thailand — that appears on FOBISIA's own member register, independently of the school, and again in the school's annual report. FOBISIA's register adds that Lanna is accredited by an approved inspectorate but does not name it, and the Accreditations section of the school's own website is a row of nine logo images with no text, so we cannot read the names from the source. Third-party directories list WASC, and the school's annual report does describe staff serving on WASC and school-improvement committees, which is consistent — but consistent is not confirmed, so ask admissions for the accrediting body, the date of the last inspection and the report itself.
• Smoke-season coverage building by building, and specifically whether the Early Years rooms are now on the positive air pressure system — the school's 2023–24 report had Buildings G and H and key public areas installed, with Early Years still listed as planned.
• Teacher retention. The school publishes a tenure breakdown, and in 2023–24 — the year the Secondary division moved campus — a little over 40 per cent of teachers were in their first year. That is the sort of figure that reflects a one-off move or a longer pattern, and only the school can tell you which. Ask what it looks like now.
• The current fee schedule — tuition, application and registration fees, any refundable deposit or capital/development levy, uniforms, lunches, the bus and trips.
• Whether the year group you need has a place, or a waitlist, for your intended start date.
• Smoke-season provision in detail: which buildings are filtered, whether the sports halls and canteen are included as well as classrooms, whether indoor and outdoor AQI readings are published to parents, and the school's written policy for cancelling outdoor activities. This is the single most important Chiang Mai-specific question a family can ask, and provision varies enormously between campuses.
• School bus routes, catchment zones and pick-up times for the specific neighbourhood you are considering — several Chiang Mai schools sit well outside the ring roads, and a home ten minutes further out but on the route can be the easier morning.
• Entry requirements: assessments, interviews, English-language support and the school reports or transcripts you must supply.
• How far the school takes your child, and on which exam pathway — Chiang Mai mixes American/AP, Cambridge IGCSE and A-level, and IB Diploma routes, and switching between them mid-secondary is disruptive.

Visit the official Lanna International School Thailand (LIST) website →