Regents
International
Pattaya.

The Sixth Form choice
nobody else offers.

// In this editorial → British schools hub ↗ · IB Diploma hub ↗ · Boarding schools hub ↗ · Boarding price guide ↗ · Learning support guide ↗ · University outcomes guide ↗ · Rugby vs Regents — flagship head-to-head ↗ · Garden vs Regents — IBDP head-to-head ↗

Of the four premium-tier schools on the Eastern Seaboard, Regents is the only one that runs both the IB Diploma Programme and A-Levels through Years 12–13. At every other shortlist school — Rugby, St Andrew's Green Valley, Garden Rayong — the decision is made for you at age 16. At Regents the family looks at the child, looks at the universities they're targeting, and picks the pathway that fits. That alone is worth a serious comparison if your child is heading into Year 10 and the IB-vs-A-Level question is still open.

What you're buying beyond that single Sixth Form advantage is the Nord Anglia network. Regents is one of 80+ schools across 30+ countries owned by Nord Anglia Education, running variants of the same curriculum framework with shared partnership programmes — MIT for STEM, The Juilliard School for performing arts, UNICEF for global citizenship modules — and a Global Campus that lets students from any Nord Anglia school collaborate or transfer cleanly to another country. If your family is internationally mobile — Singapore today, Dubai in three years, Geneva after that — Nord Anglia handles those moves without breaking the academic record.

Age one starts in August — but the public tariff has not caught up

Regents announced in July 2026 that its Lion Cubs Nursery will accept children from age one from August 2026. Applications are open, children may join after turning one during the year when places remain, and the published day runs from 7:30am to 5:30pm. That changes the school's lower age boundary from two to one. It does not change this page's tuition minimum: the public 2026/27 fee sheet still starts at Pre-Nursery and does not price Lion Cubs. A family considering the new provision should request the tuition, hours, meals, holiday-camp pricing, deposit and withdrawal terms in a dated written quote. The school also states that it serves more than 1,200 students from over 50 nationalities; that is the current school-published enrolment fact, not an independently audited headcount.

Location and commute

Regents sits in Pong, on the inland side of Banglamung — closer to central Pattaya than Rugby's Bang Lamung campus, but still not walkable from Jomtien or Pratumnak. School bus is the standard answer for most families on the coast; fees vary by zone. The 2026/27 schedule is ฿45K–฿126K one-way or ฿60K–฿168K two-way per year. The campus itself was purpose-built and has expanded over three decades — swimming pool, sports halls, theatre, music suite, the standard premium-international full kit.

Academics

The new Lion Cubs provision extends EYFS-based learning to age one from August 2026; the existing Early Years route continues above it. The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) at primary is a globally-mobile-family-friendly framework that maps cleanly across Nord Anglia's other schools. IGCSE follows in Years 10–11. Then comes the bifurcation at 16: either three or four A-Levels or the full IB Diploma. The school says the majority of its teachers hold UK Qualified Teacher Status.

Boarding

Regents offers boarding from Year 3 (age 7) — early by international-school standards. The current discounted annual boarding charge is ฿424,650 on top of tuition, plus a ฿30,000 refundable retainer. A Year 13 full-boarder therefore reaches about ฿1.279 million in published tuition and boarding before exams, trips, support and other extras. Ask for the current boarding population by year group rather than assuming where the cohort concentrates.

Head-to-head: Rugby School Thailand

The premium-tier matchup most families end up running. Rugby is bigger, more expensive at the top end (฿999K vs ฿854K), more sports-heavy, has the older alumni-network brand, and offers A-Levels only. Regents is slightly cheaper, considerably more curriculum-flexible at Sixth Form, has the global network advantage if you move countries, and offers the MIT/Juilliard programme partnerships. If your child is bookish and academically curious, Regents probably edges Rugby. If sport-first or specifically wanting the English public-school atmosphere, Rugby probably edges Regents.

Head-to-head: Garden International Rayong

Garden has strong external evidence — full current campus accreditation, a published 100% Diploma pass rate in 2023 and current FOBISIA membership, which the federation dates to 2002 or earlier. If your child is locked-in IB and a proven IB cohort is the priority, Garden may be the academic pick. Where Regents wins is the optionality of the A-Level alternative pathway, which Garden doesn't offer.

How to think about the IB-vs-A-Level decision itself

Since the Sixth Form choice is Regents' headline selling point, be clear-eyed about when it actually matters. The IB Diploma suits broad academics — six subjects, theory of knowledge, the extended essay — and is the stronger currency for US, Canadian, and European university applications and for students who have not yet narrowed their direction at 16. A-Levels suit depth — three or four subjects studied hard — and remain the cleanest route into UK universities for students who already know they want medicine, engineering, law, or maths-heavy degrees. A family certain of the UK route loses little choosing an A-Level-only school; a family certain of the IB loses little at Garden or St Andrew's. Regents' optionality is worth real money specifically to families whose fifteen-year-old has not decided — which, in our experience, is most fifteen-year-olds. You are paying to defer an irreversible decision by two years, made with two more years of information about your own child.

The all-in arithmetic

The fee table below carries the detail, but anchor on the shape: published tuition runs from ฿440.8K at Pre-Nursery to ฿854.05K in Years 12–13 after the 5% annual-payment discount. Lion Cubs is not priced publicly. Entry costs front-load the first year, while trips, examinations, meals, transport and support sit outside tuition. A day student entering Year 7 and finishing Year 13 sits in the region of ฿4.5M–฿5M of tuition over seven years before increases and extras. Against Rugby the totals converge surprisingly closely at the top end; against the Established tier (TPIS, MIS) Regents costs roughly half-again to double per year. The premium buys the network, Sixth Form optionality, partnership programmes and the established Nord Anglia platform — whether those are worth ฿200K+ a year over TPIS has no universal answer.

Questions for the tour

One: ask for the most recent IB Diploma and A-Level results side by side — cohort sizes, average IB points, A-Level grade distribution. A school that offers both pathways should show both score sheets without hesitation. Two: how does the school advise the pathway decision in Year 11, and what proportion of students chose each route in the last three years? A heavily lopsided split tells you where the school's teaching depth actually sits. Three: which MIT/Juilliard programme elements actually ran on this campus last term — sessions, visits, student work — versus network-level branding? Four: for prospective boarders, what does the Year 3-13 boarding population look like by age and nationality, and what is the weekend programme? A ฿424.65K boarding line deserves the same scrutiny as tuition.