St. Stephen's International School, Khao Yai.

Where this school stops

Age 18, at the end of the Sixth Form. It is the only school in Nakhon Ratchasima province that takes a child the whole way from age two to university entrance without a change of school.

What happens when the route runs out

Korat’s defining schooling problem is not price and it is not choice of curriculum. It is that the city’s schools stop at different ages, only one of them is secular, and that one stops earliest of all.

There is no handoff. This is the ceiling for the whole province — the one school in Nakhon Ratchasima where a pupil can sit A Levels. Every other school in the province ends at IGCSE, at an American-style Grade 12, or at an IB Diploma whose authorisation status is currently disputed. A Korat family who wants a British sixth form has exactly two options: this campus, or leaving the province.

What a leaver actually holds

The curriculum label and the leaving qualification are different things. For a family that may move country again, this line is the decision — and a blank cell is itself a finding.

Cambridge A Level. The school runs a full Sixth Form on its own campus — a dedicated A Level section, an A Level subject list, a Cambridge International Education page and a university-destinations page all sit in its own navigation. This matters because in four earlier cities in this rotation (Pattaya, Koh Samui, Krabi, Ayutthaya) a school advertising A Levels turned out to teach them partly online through a distance-learning provider. There is no sign of that here: nothing in the Sixth Form section describes blended, hybrid or remote study.

Where the campus actually is

49, 49/1-3 Moo 4 Thanarat Road, Nong Nam Daeng, Pak Chong, Nakhon Ratchasima 30450

Roughly 84 km west of Nakhon Ratchasima city centre in a straight line, computed from the coordinates the International Schools Database publishes for the campus (14.6212 N, 101.4070 E). The road route is longer: Highway 2 (Mittraphap) west to Pak Chong, then south on Thanarat Road. We deliberately publish no drive time — we have not measured one, and neither the school nor any primary source publishes one.

There is no rail to the campus and none planned. The realistic patterns are boarding, or living in Pak Chong / Khao Yai and driving Thanarat Road. Daily commuting from Nakhon Ratchasima city is not a normal arrangement at this distance, and the school publishes no bus route to the city — which is precisely why the boarding house exists.

School bus — published routes

None published. The campus's own site carries no transport or bus-route page. If a route to Pak Chong town or to Korat exists, it is not on the public site — ask admissions, and ask for the route in writing.

Korat area guides families use for this school run: Outer Korat & the Bypass Suburbs

The curriculum pathway, stage by stage

• Early Years — the English Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), from age 2. A separate 'Tiny Seed' parent-and-toddler playgroup runs alongside it.
• Primary — the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
• Lower secondary — Key Stage 3.
• Key Stage 4 — Cambridge IGCSE, with a published subject-choice process.
• Sixth Form — A Level, with published subject lists, a prefect system and a university-destinations page. This is the only A-Level route in Nakhon Ratchasima province.

Accreditations, authorisations & affiliations

Four different claims, routinely collapsed into one. A whole-school accreditation (WASC, CIS, NEASC, Cognia) assesses the school itself. An examination-board authorisation (Cambridge, IB, College Board) means it may enter pupils for those exams. A membership or affiliation is neither. And “none named” is a fourth state, distinct from “not accredited”.

• ACCREDITATION-ADJACENT, PUBLISHED BY THE SCHOOL: the campus publishes its own 'SSKY ISQM Report 2025' as a downloadable PDF linked from its main navigation. ISQM is the International Schools Quality Mark, awarded by Education Development Trust. That is a published, dated, third-party quality review — more than several schools in this rotation offer.
• AFFILIATION: FOBISIA, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia, lists 'St. Stephen's International School — Bangkok & Khao Yai Campuses' among its member schools. Membership is not accreditation.
• EXAMINATION AUTHORISATION: Cambridge International — the school has dedicated Cambridge International Education pages at both Key Stage 4 and Sixth Form.
• NOT CONFIRMED: third-party listings variously credit this campus with CIS accreditation, WASC accreditation, EASA membership and ACSI membership. We read the campus's own About, Vision, Curriculum, Boarding and Contact pages and found none of those four named. We report the claim and decline to repeat it as fact — see the flags below.

Religious character

The campus publishes no statement of faith, no religious requirement and no worship obligation on any page we read. Its Vision and Philosophy pages are entirely secular in content — an 'East meets West' educational philosophy, leadership, self-discipline, critical thinking. The saint's name in the title is not, on the school's own published evidence, a description of its programme. One caveat, stated openly: a third-party directory asserts ACSI membership (the Association of Christian Schools International) for this campus, which we could not confirm. If a secular environment is the deciding factor for your family, ask the school directly rather than relying on either our reading or the directory's.

Boarding

Yes, and it is the reason most Korat families look here at all. The school states on its own boarding page that it 'boasts the first boarding school in Thailand', with purpose-built accommodation inside the main school rather than an off-site house. Its own navigation carries a boarding structure page, a boarding-day timetable, an activities page, a 'boarding family' page and a bookable boarding tour — the depth of published material you would expect from a genuine boarding operation rather than a homestay arrangement dressed up as one. Udon Thani taught that 'offers boarding' and 'has a boarding house' are different claims; this one is a boarding house. A third-party review reports boarding from Year 3 with full and weekly options and roughly 30% of pupils boarding — plausible and consistent, but not confirmed on the school's own pages, so treat the entry year and the proportion as unverified and ask.

Admissions

The school publishes an admissions enquiry form, a school brochure, a scholarships page and a 2026/2027 fee schedule on its own site, plus a full published calendar for both 2025–2026 and 2026–2027. We publish no fee figures — use the school's own current schedule.

Who it suits

Korat families who want a British curriculum with a real, on-campus sixth form, and who can either board a child or relocate to the Pak Chong / Khao Yai side of the province. It is also the obvious answer for a family whose child is already 14 or 15: the three schools in Korat city either stop at 16 or run post-16 routes that are Christian-founded, still being built out, or both.

What we could not verify — and where sources disagree

We publish these openly rather than smoothing them over. A school guide that hides its uncertainty is not much use to a family making a decision this big.

• We publish no founding year. The Khao Yai campus's own Instagram handle is 'sisky1995', which points at 1995, but no page on the campus's own site states a founding year, and St. Stephen's operates Bangkok campuses as well, so a group date and a campus date are easy to conflate — the mistake the Anglo Singapore listings make in this same city. We would rather leave the field blank than print the wrong one.
• A web search summary describes this campus as offering 'IB programs'. It does not. The school's own curriculum navigation runs EYFS → IPC → Key Stage 3 → Key Stage 4 IGCSE → Sixth Form A Level, end to end, with no IB programme named anywhere. This is a search-summary error, not a school claim, and we name it because a family comparing an IB school in Korat city with a supposed IB school at Khao Yai would be comparing something that does not exist.
• CIS, WASC, EASA and ACSI are all asserted for this campus by third-party sites. None appears on the campus's own pages we read. What the school does publish is its ISQM 2025 report. We report the gap rather than picking a side.
• Ownership is published, which is unusual and worth crediting: the school's own footer links Ocean Glass, Ocean Property, Ocean Life Insurance and Bandara Group, and its Philosophy page is signed by 'Mr. Kris Assakul — Late Founder and Ex-Chairman, Ocean Life Insurance Company Limited'. Families who care who owns a school can see it here without asking.
• The Contact Us page carries a Drupal node timestamp of March 2016 and an embedded map generated in 2016. The address and telephone are consistent with every other source, so we publish them, but the page has not been touched in some years — confirm the number still answers before you drive 84 km.
• The campus publishes a 'Military Service' page under student enrichment. That is Thai reserve-officer (ror dor) provision, relevant to Thai-national pupils and to dual-national families, and it is not something most international schools in this rotation offer.

Ask every school in Nakhon Ratchasima this

• Which year group does this school actually stop at THIS academic year — not which one it plans to add? Korat's most-searched school runs a sixth form only in Bangkok, and its Korat homepage still advertises university acceptances. Two schools here are mid-expansion. Ask for the current year-group list, in writing.
• If the school advertises the IB Diploma: is it AUTHORISED or a CANDIDATE, and for which programmes? Candidate status carries no guarantee that authorisation follows. Ask for the authorisation date and check it against the IB's own school register.
• Is the post-16 stage taught on this campus by this school's own staff? Four earlier cities in this rotation produced 'A Levels' that turned out to be distance learning bought in from a third party.
• What qualification does a leaver actually hold — and is it recognised where you might move next? Korat's answers differ more than the curriculum labels suggest: a Cambridge IGCSE at 16, a school diploma that the Thai Ministry of Education recognises as equivalent to the Thai secondary certificate, an IB Diploma of disputed status, and a Cambridge A Level 84 km away.
• What does the religious character mean in practice — a Bible lesson on the timetable, a required chapel, a statement of faith to sign, or nothing at all? Two of the three schools in Korat city are Christian foundations, and they are not Christian in the same way.
• Is there a school bus, and does it reach where you are actually going to live? One Korat school publishes no bus at all; the others publish no routes. Two of the three city campuses are 10–13 km out of town, in opposite directions.
• Drive it at 07:00 on a weekday before you sign a lease. Korat's schools are spread across the western approaches to the city and the distances on a map are not the distances on Mittraphap Road.
• Does the school's own homepage carry a closure, rebranding or ownership-change notice? Samut Prakan produced a school that had ceased operating six weeks before we looked, while directories still listed it as enrolling.

Sources & References

• Ministry of Education, 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.