Saint Maur International School

The oldest international school in Asia, founded by French Catholic sisters in 1872 and now a co-ed K-12 in Yokohama's Yamate hills. The natural choice for families settling in Yokohama or southern Kanagawa.

Saint Maur runs Montessori in the early years, then moves into IGCSE in Grade 10 and the IB Diploma in Grades 11 and 12. Around 450 students attend, the student to teacher ratio sits near 7 to 1, and roughly a quarter of upper school students sit IB courses rather than the full diploma. The Yamate site is a 150 year old hilltop campus with a Catholic identity that sits lightly on day to day life.

The community feels small and tight, the admissions team puts real time into settling new arrivals, and learning support has more flex than at most Tokyo names. University guidance has a long track record. The Yokohama commute makes little sense for anyone living north or central in Tokyo, and tuition climbs through the upper grades to roughly the range of the major Tokyo schools.

• Yokohama parents and Japan-based expats use Saint Maur as the local alternative to ASIJ and Yokohama International School. It is the school people pick when they want Yokohama-side living and Catholic, traditional framing rather than the more secular international circuit in Tokyo.
• Posters and r/Tokyo describe it as academically demanding and tighter on discipline than YIS or ASIJ. Parents who chose it tend to flag this as the reason, not in spite of it.
• The school's single biggest distinguishing line in expat conversation is age. It dates to 1872 and parents talk about it as an institution rather than a campus.
• Curriculum is unusually broad for its size, running Montessori, IPC, IGCSE, IB and AP. Posters note this as flexibility for university destinations, but also as a lot of moving parts in a 500-pupil school.
• One parent asked directly how it compared to ASIJ and Yokohama International for a 7-year-old, which captures where Saint Maur sits in the consideration set: a serious third option, not a first-pick name.