Canadian International School JapanVerified

In Brief

CISJ is the right option if you want a Canadian curriculum school in Tokyo - it is the only one of its kind - and your child is in Grades 1-12 where the BC PEI programme is strongest. The split campuses in Shinagawa and Nakameguro work well enough, but check which site your child's year group is on before visiting.

CISJ runs the British Columbia provincial curriculum (PEI) from Kindergarten through Grade 12, making it unique in Tokyo for Canadian-curriculum families. High school adds AP courses on top of the BC programme, giving students a qualification that transfers cleanly to Canadian universities. Around 600 students from a wide range of nationalities, with roughly half holding Japanese passports - this is a genuinely mixed community rather than an expat bubble. The WASC, JCIS, and PEI Canada accreditations are solid; the IB PYP is available at elementary level only.

The two-campus split is the main practical consideration: secondary (Grades 6-12) is based in Osaki, Shinagawa, while elementary (Kindergarten through Grade 5) is in Nakameguro. Both are accessible by train and reasonably central by Tokyo standards. The Osaki campus is a converted urban building - compact, no playground or swimming pool - so families coming from larger campus schools should calibrate expectations. The school's urban location in south Tokyo gives it good access from Shinagawa, Meguro, and Minato areas.

University placements include Toronto, UBC, and McGill on the Canadian side, alongside Oxford, LSE, Imperial, NYU, and UCLA, and Japanese institutions including Waseda and Keio. The admissions requirement that at least one parent can communicate in English is worth noting. One practical point worth asking about on your visit: EAL support is available at elementary and middle school level but not in high school - so if your child is still developing English fluency, check what support is in place for the transition into secondary.