Overview
Daniel International School opened on 7 August 2023 at Ban Bo Chalok in Kanchanadit district, on the Tapi River east of Surat Thani city, and is the newest and largest-campus school on the mainland at about 7.5 acres. It grew out of the work of a couple from Hong Kong -- professional educators who came to Thailand to teach Chinese in local schools -- and is rooted in Christian values, with religion taught separately from the core English-medium programme. Teaching is trilingual in English, Chinese and Thai, on a bespoke standards-based curriculum that draws on American, British, Australian, Chinese and Thai frameworks, in a STEAM-rich setting with robotics, coding, design and performance facilities and a library and research commons. It runs on a US school-information system, publishes a full itemised fee schedule, and operates a host-family programme for children whose homes are outside the city. It is also the only one of Surat Thani's three schools that states publicly it is still working through its Thai school licensing.
BAANLYY is not affiliated with DIS and takes no paid placement in this guide. We publish no per-school fee figures anywhere on this site -- they change every year, and the figures circulating for Surat Thani's three schools are not comparable with one another. Ask the school for its current schedule.
Key facts
| Address | 99/1 Ban Bo Chalok, Moo 4 Thung Kong, Kanchanadit District, Surat Thani 84290 |
| Area | Ban Bo Chalok, on the Tapi River east of the city on the road toward Don Sak |
| District | Kanchanadit |
| Opened | 2023 |
| Curriculum | A bespoke, American-influenced standards-based curriculum drawing on American, British, Australian, Chinese and Thai standards, taught trilingually in English, Chinese and Thai |
| Age range | From about age 2. The top of the school is moving: the school's own 2026 open house names Grade 10 (age 15); the International Schools Database records ages 2 to 16; doris records ages 3 to 13. |
| Religious character | Christian. DIS was founded by a couple from Hong Kong who came to Thailand as Chinese teachers in local schools, and the school describes itself as rooted in Christian values. Religion is taught as a subject alongside, not inside, the core English-medium programme, its accrediting membership is with the Association of Christian Schools International, and its homestay programme describes host parents caring for a child's spiritual as well as physical and mental needs. It is the only school of the three with a religious character, and the only one where that character extends into out-of-school hours. |
| Scale | Not published as a headcount. The school publishes a campus of about 7.5 acres. doris records ages 3 to 13 and the International Schools Database ages 2 to 16, neither of which can be reconciled with the school's own open-house range of ages 2 to 15 -- so we publish no roll figure. |
| Boarding | This is the fact most likely to be got wrong. DIS advertises a Boarding Program, and at least one directory records the school as offering boarding -- but read the school's own page and it is a host-family homestay, not a boarding house. Children are placed with carefully selected and trained host parents, with transport to and from school where the home is not within walking distance, breakfast and dinner daily, laundry, filtered water and a personal study space. Families can request an English- or Chinese-speaking household, subject to availability. It is expressly designed for students whose home is outside Surat Thani city -- which, in this province, means the islands and the surrounding districts. Judge it as a homestay arrangement, because that is what it is. |
| Telephone | +66 94 342 7778 |
| Official website | www.dischool.ac.th/en |
The pathway, stage by stage
- Early Years -- pre-nursery, nursery and kindergarten from about age 2
- Primary and Middle School -- Grades 1 upward on the school's own standards-based curriculum, in a STEAM-rich programme covering robotics, coding, design and performance
- High School -- opened progressively from the 2025/26 year. The school's own 2026 open-house invitation welcomes prospective students from pre-nursery to Grade 10, ages 2-15.
- Advanced Placement -- named by the school and by directories as the intended post-16 route in Grades 11-12. Treat it as planned, not running, until the school confirms otherwise.
Where the school stops
Currently around Grade 10, and rising. DIS opened in August 2023 and has been adding a year group at a time, which is a normal and honest way to build a school -- but it means the top of the school is a moving target and the published age ranges disagree with each other. The Advanced Placement pathway in Grades 11-12 is described as the plan. If your child is 14 or older, ask specifically whether the year group above them will exist next year, and who will teach it.
No school on the Surat Thani mainland teaches to 18. See the Surat Thani schools guide for how all three compare on this, and the Koh Samui schools guide for the nearest schools that do.
Accreditation & memberships
What DIS itself publishes. Where an independent source disagrees, it is named in the flags below rather than quietly dropped.
- ACSI -- the Association of Christian Schools International. The school states it is a member school.
- WASC -- the school states it will begin its WASC school self-study and prepare to host an initial accreditation visit. This is a stated intention, not an accreditation.
- The school states on its own website that its curriculum has been approved and that it is in the process of obtaining its school licence.
Who it’s for
Families who specifically want a Christian framework, a trilingual English-Chinese-Thai programme and a STEAM-heavy environment on a large campus, and who are comfortable being early in a school's life. Its homestay programme makes it the one realistic mainland option for a family based outside the city -- including island families who want a mainland school -- and it is the only one of the three with a published fee schedule, published boarding costs and a published scholarship programme, though that scholarship is restricted to Thai nationals.
Location & the school run
DIS is not in Surat Thani city. It is at Ban Bo Chalok in Kanchanadit district, east of the city on the Tapi River, on the corridor that runs out toward the Don Sak ferry piers for Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan. That position is the point rather than a drawback -- it is the school nearest the island ferries, and its homestay programme exists precisely because its catchment reaches beyond a daily drive. For a family living in the city centre it is the longest school run of the three; measure it at 07:00 before you sign a lease.
Areas families use for this school run: Don Sak ferry corridor →Ban Don riverside →
What we could not verify, and where sources disagree
We publish this rather than tidy it away. Every item below is something a family should raise directly with the school.
- The school states on its own website -- in the site-wide meta description carried on every page, including the homepage -- that it is in the process of obtaining its school licence, and that its curriculum has already been approved. We report that verbatim because it is the school's own current statement, and because a licence is not a detail a relocating family can afford to assume. Ask for the current position and for documentation.
- The WASC accreditation statement on the school's own site is written in the future tense and refers to beginning the process as soon as the school starts its second academic year -- which was 2024. Two years on, the same sentence is still on the page. DIS therefore holds ACSI membership and no whole-school accreditation that we can verify.
- Three sources give three different top ages: the school's own 2026 open house says pre-nursery to Grade 10, ages 2-15; the International Schools Database says ages 2 to 16; doris says ages 3 to 13. We publish the school's own figure and name the other two rather than average them.
- doris's Surat Thani summary counts one school in the city as offering boarding. On the evidence of the school's own page, that is DIS's host-family homestay. A family reading boarding: yes in a directory and picturing a supervised on-campus boarding house would be moving a child on a false premise.
- The founding head's welcome letter still on the site is written for the school's opening year -- it speaks of the first year of history at DIS -- so parts of the site are two years stale. Check that anything you are relying on is current.
- The scholarship programme DIS publishes for 2026/27, covering Grades 5-10 and up to 100% of fees, requires native Thai nationality and two prior years in a local Thai school. It is a real and generous programme, and it is not open to a relocating foreign family.
- The Advanced Placement pathway in Grades 11-12 is described as prepared for and planned across the school's own materials and third-party listings. We have found no evidence of AP examinations actually being sat at DIS. Ask.
Confirm these before you enrol
- Ask for the current list of year groups actually running, in writing, with the number of children in each. This is the single highest-stakes question in Surat Thani. All three schools are small and comparatively young, published age ranges disagree with each other and in one case with the school's own fee schedule, and a stage can appear on a website while no class exists behind it.
- Ask what happens after the school ends -- because none of the three takes a child to 18. Get the school's honest answer on where its leavers actually go, and what it will and will not do to help you place a child who is 14 or 15 when you arrive.
- Ask whether the school holds a current Thai Ministry of Education school licence, and ask to see it. One of the three states on its own website that it is still in the process of obtaining one.
- Ask whether the school runs a bus, and exactly which sub-districts it covers. With no rail transit anywhere in the province, the bus catchment -- or its absence -- quietly decides which neighbourhoods are realistic for you.
- If your child is not a confident English speaker, ask how English language support is assessed, whether it is compulsory once a child is placed in it, and what it costs. At one school the programme is compulsory on assessment and carries a supplementary fee treated as part of standard tuition.
- Ask what is genuinely included and what is billed on top -- lunch, uniform, residential trips, external examination entries, after-school care, insurance. Surat Thani's schools split these very differently, which makes headline tuition figures close to useless for comparison.
- Request the school's own current fee schedule in writing. We do not publish per-school fees because they change annually, and because the figures circulating for these three schools are not comparable with one another.
Sources & References
Facts are taken from the school's own official website first. Independent directories are used only as a cross-check and are named wherever we rely on them. BAANLYY is not affiliated with this school and takes no paid placement in this content -- always confirm current fees, admissions, licensing and campus details directly with the school.
See the full Surat Thani international schools guide for how DIS compares with the city's other schools.
Hero photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.
