Cities / Shenzhen / Avenues the World School Shenzhen
Avenues the World School Shenzhen
An ambitious bilingual English and Mandarin school in Nanshan running a project driven World Course curriculum, pitched at Chinese families wanting a US style alternative to the AP and IB schools nearby. Avenues Shenzhen launched its early years programme in 2018 and now runs from age 1.
In brief
An ambitious bilingual English and Mandarin school in Nanshan running a project-driven World Course curriculum, pitched at Chinese families wanting a US-style alternative to the AP and IB schools nearby.
Avenues Shenzhen launched its early years programme in 2018 and now runs from age 1.5 to 18, the first Avenues campus in Asia. Teaching is genuinely dual-language with English and Mandarin alongside interdisciplinary projects, and the school holds NEASC and WASC. Angela Xu leads. The site is the SoFun Land complex on Tangxing Road in Nanshan, in the same orbit as ISNS, Shekou International School and BASIS.
Families who like the school praise the bilingual immersion and creative project work, particularly parents who studied or worked in the US. The recurring concern is high turnover among teachers and admin, leaving the experience heavily dependent on the individual teacher in front of your child. That makes a tour where you meet your child's actual teacher more important than at most schools. Fees sit at the top of the Shenzhen market, around 288,000 RMB.
Fees
Annual fees
| Year level | Age | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Small World (age 1.5-2) | 1 | CN¥288,000 |
| Early Learning Center (age 3-6) | 3 | CN¥288,000 |
Reviews
- The Shenzhen campus has the most consistently negative international-teacher signal of any school in this batch. Multiple teachers describe a school in difficulty after the Nord Anglia acquisition of Avenues left the Shenzhen site behind.
- One teacher wrote: "Avenues Shenzhen, doesn't have a curriculum but will say anything to parents to get kids to join. The different divisions aren't in alignment and are a total mess. Poor management and lack of support for trouble students. I'd avoid if you can find a different job."
- Another former Avenues staffer wrote that the Shenzhen site is "in free fall, fired dozens of people overnight, and the faculty is traumatized".
- A separate teacher said staff are looking for new jobs and the school is advertising posts but not actually hiring.
- A counter-view from parents describes the bilingual immersion model (alternating Chinese and English by day) as a real alternative to dual-language schools, with strong professional-development support for staff.
- Net signal: severe management and staff-stability concerns, weighed against an unusual bilingual model that some families still value.
Positives
- Bilingual immersion model. Alternating-language days from kindergarten still draw parents who want true Chinese-English immersion
Considerations
- Management stability. Multiple teaching-forum voices describe disorganised leadership and division-level misalignment
- Staff churn. Reports of mass dismissals, traumatised faculty and active job searching across the team
- Buyout aftermath. Shenzhen was excluded from the Nord Anglia acquisition of Avenues, leaving the site under separate ownership
- Recruitment integrity. Teachers describe job ads going up without actual hiring follow-through
Leadership
Angela Xu
Angela Xu is the Head of School at Avenues Shenzhen, bringing over a decade of experience across various education systems in the United States, including public, private, and special schools. She first joined Avenues in 2012 as a founding faculty member of the New York campus, where she directed the Chinese immersion program. In 2018, she moved to China to help establish Avenues Shenzhen, initially serving as the founding director of the kindergarten program and then as head of the primary division. As an expert in language immersion, she is dedicated to helping students develop cultural competencies and flexible thinking through language acquisition. She holds a deep commitment to educational innovation and reform, leading a faculty team to design a curriculum that is both locally rooted and globally connected.
Accreditations
- New England Association of Schools and Colleges 01
- Western Association of Schools and Colleges (Accrediting Commission for Schools) 02
Academic results
- Class of 2025 300+ university offers, US$17M scholarships
- Accreditation NEASC and WASC
Location
Xili Lake International Science and Education City, Xili, Nanshan District, Shenzhen