XCL American School of Bangkok, Sukhumvit

An American regional accreditation of the institution, working since 1962 and covering some 5,500 schools in California, the Pacific and Asia. It judges the whole school: a self-study, then a team visit. It gives the same status to supplementary and virtual programmes, so the category of an entry is worth checking separately.

What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.

An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.

What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.

Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.

What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.

XCL Education - a network of private and international schools, kindergartens and supplementary education programmes centred on Singapore. The network describes itself as a group of educational institutions of South-East Asia with more than 21,000 people studying in it. In Thailand the network includes XCL American School of Bangkok, Sukhumvit: the school joined the group in 2022 and changed its name from American School of Bangkok at the same time. The number of schools, a list of countries, the year of foundation and the owner are not disclosed by the network on the pages of the school site. The second campus, American School of Bangkok, Green Valley in Samut Prakan, is not mentioned on the pages about the network.

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.