Nansha College Preparatory Academy

The curriculum is American and leads to a high school diploma, with the College Board's Advanced Placement programme as its academic core. Twenty AP courses are offered to students in Grades 10 to 12, covering AP Seminar and Research, pre-calculus, calculus AB and BC, statistics, computer science A and principles, biology, chemistry, physics 1, environmental science, macroeconomics, microeconomics, business and personal finance, psychology, English language and composition, and studio art in drawing, 2D and 3D design. Pre-AP English is used in Grades 9 and 10, a minimum of four AP courses is required to graduate and students take six on average. NCPA is an AP Capstone school, and the English and mathematics curriculum is aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

NCPA covers Grades 9 to 12 only, taking students from around fourteen to eighteen. Entry is through an admissions examination in English and mathematics with an interview, run for Pre-G9 and Pre-G10 candidates, and transfer applications are considered in all grades through the year. Students take eight credits a year and must complete four credits each of English, social studies, mathematics, science and Chinese plus visual and performing arts to graduate. Pre-AP English is taught in Grades 9 and 10 and at least four AP courses are required.

The school's mission is to be a learning community that empowers students to achieve academic and social excellence, preparing them in an immersion setting for Western universities. It describes the students it wants to produce as negotiators, collaborators, planners and achievers, and treats social excellence as something practised in authentic contexts - in leadership and service groups and on the sports field, where it aims to be composed in victory and gracious in defeat. The mascot is Pulao, one of the nine sons of the dragon in Chinese mythology.

The campus covers twenty acres in Nansha's Mingzhu Bay and houses nearly 600 boarding students. It has a gymnasium and performing arts facilities, both refurbished and upgraded as part of the school improvement plan carried out under WASC accreditation, with indoor courts used by the basketball, volleyball and badminton teams, outdoor pitches for football, track and field facilities, tennis courts and a swimming pool supporting the sixteen competitive sports. The school describes its athletic, cultural and academic facilities as spacious and diverse enough to support a wide range of student interests, and says it has one of the most attractive campuses in southern China.

The school is a weekday boarding school with published boarding and catering fees for a four-bed room, with or without weekend stays, and an optional weekend bus service priced by route. Students have on-site support from college counsellors and social-emotional counsellors who follow them through their four years: individual and small-group counselling, advisory groups every other day, and semester-long seminar classes in the junior and senior years. Student support teams draw up individual action plans when a student needs extra help.

The after-school programme runs to more than two hundred activities, among them Model United Nations, yearbook, student government, the National Honor Society and the Tri-M music honour society, alongside thirty elective courses. Sixteen competitive sports are offered, with teams competing in the regional Pearl River Conference and the national ACAMIS divisions in basketball, volleyball, football, badminton, swimming, tennis, table tennis, golf, cross country and track and field; the school lists its sportsmanship awards before its titles. Six concerts, two drama productions and over a dozen art shows run each year.