EIFJ Tokyo

A young trilingual French Japanese school running French Ministry curriculum alongside the IB PYP, parent-founded in 2019 and growing fast.

EIFJ blends the French national curriculum with English and Japanese teaching, splitting elementary instruction roughly half French and half English with two hours of Japanese a week. In February 2026 it became the first French international school in Asia accredited for the IB PYP. The school is part of the Mission Laique Francaise network, which gives it a structural anchor beyond the founding parent group, and the staff and student bodies are genuinely multinational.

Families choose EIFJ for the combination of French rigour, an English working environment and tuition that runs lower than the established Tokyo names. The trade-off is scale. The school is small and still building out its upper years, so anyone planning into the lycee phase needs to check what is in place. The PYP authorisation and the network backing both point toward a school investing in stability.

• Direct parent feedback on EIFJ is split between operational concern and strong educational draw.
• One Reddit teacher comment described the school as "quite dysfunctional" while paying staff well, which sits awkwardly against the school's small footprint and rapid growth since 2019.
• Editorial coverage and parent association write-ups credit "caring and responsive teachers", a high teacher-to-student ratio, and a trilingual French-English-Japanese approach as the stand-out features.
• Operational practicality matters: the school stays open during holidays and is set up for working parents.
• The school is the only French-medium private alternative to the Lycée Français International de Tokyo, which is the main reason families consider it. Its founding in 2019 means the alumni and senior-school outcome record is short.