Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS).

The campus, and how you actually get there

Address: 59 Moo 6, Mahidol Road, Nong Hoi, Mueang, Chiang Mai 50000

The international programme operates within the wider Varee Chiangmai School group's site — which means access to the facilities of a large, well-known Thai school, and a campus that is busier and more Thai in character than the standalone international schools out in Hang Dong or Mae Rim.

Getting there: No urban rail. VCIS sits on Mahidol Road in Nong Hoi, south-east of the centre and close to the airport side of the city — one of the shorter runs available, at roughly 10–15 minutes from the city core. Nong Hoi, Chang Klan and Saraphi all work well; the northern districts do not.

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

Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS) does not publish detailed smoke-season filtration information that we could verify from primary sources, so we are not going to imply provision that may not exist. That is not a criticism of the school — most Chiang Mai schools handle this well and simply do not document it publicly — but it does mean you must ask directly. The due-diligence list below tells you exactly what to ask.

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 — UK Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), from age 2 (Pre-Nursery)
• Primary — Years 1–6: English, maths, science, humanities, computing, arts, Thai and PE, with specialist teaching in visual arts, drama, IT and PE from Year 1 upwards
• Lower secondary — Years 7–9, assessed on a 1–8 scale and sitting Cambridge Checkpoint in maths, science and English at the end of Year 9 (second-language English students take the Cambridge First Certificate of English instead)
• Cambridge IGCSE — Years 10–11
• Cambridge AS and A-level — Years 12–13
• Languages: English, Thai and Mandarin in primary; English, German, Mandarin and Thai as a first or foreign language in secondary
• Support: a Learning Support programme and an English as an Additional Language programme, with placement subject to availability

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 Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS) and its accrediting bodies publish, not our verdict:

• Education Development Trust (EDT) — the school states it is accredited through EDT, the UK-based inspectorate. This closes a question this page previously left open: VCIS does hold an external accreditation beyond its Cambridge examination status, and EDT is the body, not CIS, NEASC, WASC or BSO.
• Cambridge International Examinations centre — Checkpoint, IGCSE and AS/A-level
• Delivers the British national curriculum
• Accredited by and licensed by the Thai Ministry of Education
• Part of the Varee Chiangmai School group

Boarding and the size of the school

Boarding: The international programme is a day school — the school confirms it does not currently offer boarding facilities.

Scale: An international stream inside a large Thai school group, which gives it a different feel from Chiang Mai's standalone international schools — more Thai families, and an English-medium pathway that has long been regarded locally as one of the more accessible routes into a Cambridge curriculum. The school publishes its class-size ceilings rather than an average, which is the more honest number and lets you check the promise: a maximum of 20 in Early Years with a teacher and a teaching assistant, 25 through Key Stages 1, 2 and 3, and 15 at IGCSE and A-level. Teaching staff are drawn mainly from the UK, Ireland, the United States, South Africa and Australia. Most VCIS families live close by, which the school attributes to the central, airport-side position. 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 who want a Cambridge IGCSE and A-level pathway and a short commute on the south-east side of the city, and who are comfortable with an international programme embedded in a larger Thai school rather than a standalone international campus. It suits two groups particularly well. Thai and Thai-resident families keeping the domestic university option open: VCIS students who are Thai first-language speakers can sit their quota and GAT examinations at the school, so a Cambridge pathway does not close the door on a Thai university. And families who want the English-language exit qualification handled as a matter of course — every student who does not hold a passport from an English-speaking country is expected to take IELTS between Year 11 and Year 13, with preparation for university interviews and application essays from Year 11 onwards.

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 Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS)

The south-eastern side of the city 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:

• Exactly how the international programme is separated from the Thai programme — timetable, facilities, staffing and the language of instruction outside lessons.
• Your child's start date against the Year 9, 10 and 12 rule. Rolling admissions apply everywhere else, but those three year groups can only be joined at the beginning of the academic year, and placement for any child needing EAL or Learning Support also depends on capacity. If your relocation date is fixed and awkward, raise this in the first conversation rather than after the placement test.
• The current status of the school's EDT accreditation — the date of the last inspection and whether the report is available to parents. We have confirmed that VCIS states it is accredited through the Education Development Trust, which closes the question this page previously left open; the inspection cycle is the part a school can only answer itself.
• Smoke-season filtration in the international programme's buildings specifically. VCIS shares a site with the wider Varee Chiangmai School group, so a campus-level answer is not the same as an answer about the rooms your child will sit in.
• 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 Varee Chiangmai International School (VCIS) website →