Nishimachi International School

Since 2019, Karen O’Neill BA MA MEd. Bachelors from Stanford in East Asian Studies, masters from Bank Street College and Columbia. Her career path has taken her from business analyst at McKinsey to managing director at UBS (with a few stints at

In the kindergarten and elementary years, places are heavily oversubscribed, especially for Japanese nationals. School tries to balance the student cohort in terms of gender, experience/backgrounds and home languages. International experience plus

Most students move on to high school sections in international schools in Tokyo or join junior high schools of well-regarded Japanese private schools. Some go overseas. The school prides itself in producing middle school graduates who are

MAP testing confirms that students are doing well when benchmarked against the rest of the world.

The school has a well-earned reputation for its Japanese teaching. Japanese families know that if they want their children to have an international education and still develop a high proficiency in Japanese, this is the school of choice. For foreign

There is ‘some push-in or pull-out support’ for students who need extra help but no provision in the classroom for shadow teachers or one-to-one support. The school supports some ADHD students and has a specialist speech pathologist on call where

Teaching of English is not set by ability levels. Extra support outside of classroom time available for those who need help with English.

After-school classes for other languages are based on the demand within the cohort. Currently Chinese,

All students participate in an annual school concert with each class preparing performances. All middle school students receive an hour each of music, drama and art per week. On the day of our visit, a ‘poetry slam’ was taking place in the

Middle school students compete in basketball, volleyball, cross-country and track and field. The range of competitive sports offered can seem limited but teams hold their own against other bigger international and local schools.

A ‘no-cut’ policy

In middle school, students break into smaller groups for 15 minutes of advisory every day. An increasing commitment to student well-being will soon see two full time counsellors, plus a new health curriculum, with a dedicated health teacher, rolled

In the past, the community used to be made up of roughly even numbers of Japanese and American with few other nationalities besides but these days families say the cohort is very international. Your child’s best friends are just as likely to be

Fees are reasonable compared to other international schools in Tokyo. A few mutters that fees do not represent good value (when you consider that the school only goes up to grade 9, has limited facilities and most extracurricular activities require

This school is a special place. The founder’s philosophy and heritage are so intrinsic to the school that the school experience here cannot be replicated anywhere in Japan or indeed the world. Families who share the vision that an international