Shanghai School Visits Inform Early-Stage Programme Investigation

Shanghai, 2 December 2025 — CognateUK recently completed an investigative visit in Shanghai, holding structured conversations with senior leaders from two highly regarded schools: Shanghai United International School (SUIS) and Shanghai Experimental School International Division (SESID). This visit sits within CognateUK’s early-stage programme investigation. Our intention was simple and disciplined: to listen carefully, understand local realities, and test our assumptions about what “UK university readiness” means in practice for high-performing students in Shanghai. Our focus was on listening: understanding learner needs, curriculum realities, and the feasibility conditions that would shape any future collaboration.

Two schools, two complementary lenses

Shanghai’s international education landscape is sophisticated, and these two schools represent different strengths within it. SUIS brought a bilingual, integrated-curriculum perspective. Leaders spoke in a way that consistently returned to whole-person development and long-term capability building. There was also a strong emphasis on systematic curriculum thinking—clarity, coherence, and evaluation—so that students, teachers, and families share the same understanding of what learning is for and how progress is evidenced.

SUIS leadership conversation on integrated curriculum design, whole-person development, and maintaining authenticity of student work in an AI-enabled environment.

SESID, by contrast, offered the lens of a rigorous A-Level/IGCSE environment with clear operational discipline. The conversation highlighted practical feasibility: how any enrichment model would sit alongside an already demanding academic calendar, what “good” looks like in outcomes, and how evidence can remain credible under real-world constraints.

Conversation with SESID leaders on UK university readiness, credible evidence of learning, and operational feasibility within a rigorous A-Level/IGCSE context.

Taken together, these perspectives help us hold two truths at once: educational intent matters, and delivery realities matter just as much.

Themes that surfaced across both conversations

Although the discussions were exploratory, several shared themes emerged.

Readiness beyond grades

Both schools signalled that strong academic performance alone is not always sufficient for top progression outcomes. There is interest in clearer support around capability signals—maturity, reasoning, and evidence of development—alongside examination attainment.

Life Sciences awareness and exposure

Life Sciences surfaced as a domain of interest, alongside questions about how students can develop a more realistic understanding of pathways, frontier topics, and the skills expectations associated with the field.

AI, learning effectiveness, and integrity

AI was discussed as a fast-moving force shaping education. Alongside opportunities to improve learning efficiency, schools are also mindful of how to protect the credibility and authenticity of student work in an AI-enabled environment.

Feasibility matters

Any potential collaboration would need to be low-lift for schools, with careful attention to workload, calendar fit, and clarity of roles and responsibilities.

Next steps

As part of CognateUK’s design model, we will incorporate insights from these Shanghai conversations into the next iteration of our course development. We will continue refining our approach through structured reflection and ongoing listening, ensuring that any future work remains educationally sound, operationally realistic, and respectful of school contexts.

CognateUK and SESID leaders following a working discussion on learner readiness, evidence of development and delivery feasibility.

In parallel, we will run an early-stage UK beta with two colleges in January to test the digital learning platform in a real delivery environment and refine the learner experience. This reflects CognateUK’s commitment to serving UK learners as well as their international counterparts.

Note: This update reflects CognateUK’s investigation and learning process. It does not represent an official position of SUIS, SESID, or any other institution, and it should not be read as announcing a formal partnership or programme launch.