Singapore International School @ Ha Long

Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.

What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.

KinderWorld International Group was founded in Singapore in 1986 and entered Vietnam in the late 1990s: the first international kindergarten opened in Ho Chi Minh City in 2000 and the first Singapore International School in Hanoi in 2004. In Vietnam the group runs three brands: KinderWorld International Kindergarten, Singapore International School and Singapore Vietnam International School. The site does not separate ownership, management and franchise: of the Vietnamese-Singaporean schools it says that they are under the group's management, for the other brands the form of the relationship is not named, and a franchise is nowhere mentioned. The legal entities are KinderWorld International Group Ltd in Singapore and KinderWorld Vietnam JSC in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The numbers of campuses differ on its own pages and we give all three: the block of indicators claims 15 schools across Vietnam, the campuses section on the same page lists 11 - Ciputra, Van Phuc and Gamuda Gardens in Hanoi, Ha Long, Le Chan in Hai Phong, Da Nang, Binh Duong New City, Saigon South, Swan Bay in Dong Nai, Vung Tau and Can Tho - and the page about the Saigon South campus speaks of 14 campuses in the group. The stages run from Pre-Nursery to Year 12. There are two programmes: an international one based on the curriculum of the Singapore Ministry of Education with the iPSLE, IGCSE and AS/A Level examinations, and an integrated one based on the Vietnamese curriculum. The language of instruction is English, and Chinese is compulsory in the international programme. WASC accreditation.

What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.