ISS International School (Preston)

One of the oldest international schools in Singapore, a full IB continuum school on a single hillside campus on Preston Road with a deliberately small, tight-knit feel.

ISS was founded in 1981 and is one of only a handful of schools in Singapore authorised for all three IB programmes, the PYP, MYP and Diploma. In 2020 the elementary and secondary divisions were brought together on a single Preston Road campus, with a self-contained primary section at the foot of the site. CIS, WASC and EduTrust are all in place.

It offers a smaller, more traditional school feel than the larger Singapore options, with strong relationships between teachers and students and a through-train IB experience. Parents praise lower student-to-teacher ratios, named pastoral care and a settled long-serving staff. Families looking for the breadth of sport and co-curricular options at SAS or UWC will find ISS narrower, but for families who actively want a smaller community the Preston campus delivers it.

• Parents describe ISS as an unusually small, all-IB through-school on a hilltop Preston Road campus, and most of the public commentary leans on that scale.
• Recurring praise for low student-to-teacher ratio (around 1 to 8) and class sizes of 18 to 20, which parents tie to gains in their children's reading and writing.
• The school's "Kampong" homeroom system and 30 percent nationality cap come up repeatedly as reasons families choose it over larger Singapore schools.
• One parent visit described staff giving an immediate "feeling of home" and a community where everyone knows each other.
• Pool is small and skews positive; no recurring negative pattern surfaces in public reviews.