The admissions process at KAIS is thoughtfully designed to ensure that each student finds the right fit within our community. We understand that selecting a school is a significant decision, and we aim to make this journey as smooth and informative as possible for families. From initial contact to final acceptance, our process is structured to give prospective students and their families a comprehensive understanding of what KAIS offers and how it aligns with their educational goals.

Enrollment Process

Step 1

Get to know KAIS

Book a school tour or contact our admissions office for more information.

Book A Tour

Step 2

Create an Alma Account

Start your application by creating an account on Alma, our student information system.

Alma Account

Step 3

Start Enrollment Application

Once your Alma account is created, begin the enrollment application and provide the required documentation listed below.

Step 4

Document Screening

Your completed application will be reviewed by the Admissions Team. Our Admissions Director will track your progress and provide support along the way.

Step 5

Trial Day

After reviewing all documents, we invite the student for a trial day (or half-day for Pre-K to Grade 2) on a regular school day. During the visit, the student will take placement tests in Mathematics and Language Arts to assess their level and needs.

Step 6

Acceptance Review

After the trial day, our educators review the child’s performance to determine if KAIS is a good fit. If accepted, the family is notified by email, and we warmly welcome the new student to our community.

You will need to provide the following documents as part of the enrollment process:

Admissions application
School transcripts/records from the past two years
Two reference letters from the child’s previous Math and English teachers
Detailed information on any special educational support needs

For Pre-K or Kindergarten (ages 4-6), you must also provide:

As a childcare facility requirement, families with a child enrolling in Pre-K or Kindergarten (ages 4-6) must provide: (1) a Pre-Enrollment Medical Examination form, and (2) a medical check record by their doctor every six months until they have entered Grade 1.

Please ensure all learning needs are fully disclosed to avoid any issues, as failure to do so may result in the child being withdrawn if the school cannot meet their needs. Open communication is essential for a positive experience.

2024-2025

Tuition and Fees

Pre-K to Grade 2

Base Tuition: ¥1,974,358

Enrollment Fee: ¥350,000 (one-time payment)
Building Maintenance Fee: ¥200,000 (one-time payment)
Materials Fee: ¥154,642
Trip & Event Fee: ¥40,000

Grades 3 – 8

Base Tuition: ¥2,024,358

Enrollment Fee: ¥350,000 (one-time payment)
Building Maintenance Fee: ¥200,000 (one-time payment)
Materials Fee: ¥154,642
Trip & Event Fee: ¥90,000

Grades 9 – 12

Base Tuition: ¥2,140,659

Enrollment Fee: ¥350,000 (one-time payment)
Building Maintenance Fee: ¥200,000 (one-time payment)
Materials Fee: ¥242,674
Trip & Event Fee: ¥96,800

Some (Great!) Reasons to Enroll Your Child at KAIS

We encourage and even expect our students to work hard and to do their best. But we are friendly and open with them. Put another way, we are not exactly relaxed, but we are definitely not uptight.
Our faculty are all qualified teachers, with several members being experts in their fields (with master’s degrees or above). And we can’t stress this enough — they all love teaching.
Our school is small enough to allow us to get to know all our students (and their parents) very well. We can recognize their strengths and spot their weaknesses. We can readily see what they need and what they contribute to their classes and the school.
The staff and faculty at KAIS respect and value our students’ individuality even as we encourage them to consider the needs of others.
Our classes and hallways are lively and even noisy at times. Our students love to talk and to express themselves openly and passionately. They love to be involved and feel engaged.
Our students are empowered with choice: choice in projects to work on, choice in elective classes to take, choice in Homework Labs/Study Halls to attend. At the same time, we give them all the guidance they need, especially those students who before they came to us, had not had the guidance they needed and deserved.
We like all our students to be self-starters and go-getters. We encourage them to come up with ideas on their own and then to pursue those ideas as far as they can go.
We invite and applaud curiosity. We encourage our students to ask questions and then to use their skills and the myriad resources available online and elsewhere to find the answers to their questions and to satisfy their curiosity on their own.
We want our students to do their best in sports and performances, but we also encourage them to never forget the importance of joy.
Students from Grades 3 and up study with a different teacher for every subject. This exposes them to a variety of personalities and teaching styles, and contributes greatly to their understanding of people and the world we live in.
We want all our students to go home every day and tell their parents, “I had a great day at school today!” We believe that learning, even when it’s hard, should be fun.
We believe that school is a place for face-to-face interaction. We don’t allow our students to use their phones at school.
For students learning the fundamentals of the English language, we have an English-only environment to encourages our EAL students to improve their speaking skills as quickly as possible.
Our students are all hip, cool, and kind. Each and every one has a fascinating, unique personality and has interests of his or her very own. They are welcoming to newcomers. They embrace EVERYONE. They are our pride and joy. They are awesome.

Considerations Before Enrolling Your Child at KAIS

While our sports program is evolving and improving, it is unlikely to ever be up to the standards of the larger international schools. We just don’t have the space. If you want your child to attend a school with a robust, competitive sports program, we are probably not for you. That being said, for a school our size, our sports program is very respectable and we make excellent use of the space that we have. We offer swimming lessons at a nearby sports and fitness center, and we have frequent workouts that keep our students in tip-top shape both physically and mentally (and we like to play a lot of table tennis and four square). At any rate, as far as sports are concerned, our focus is on the opportunities for personal growth that sports present rather than on the sports in and of themselves.
If your child prefers to “hang back” and blend into the background, he or she may struggle at a school like ours. Our small classes mean that every child is noticed and stands out. We all, students, staff, and teachers alike, know one another. We “hang out” with and speak to one another every day. That’s part of the friendly, family-like, fun atmosphere that defines us. But again, it is also not everyone’s cup of tea.
We are very proud of our Japanese program, but we also know that it is unrealistic for us to expect a child in our program to develop his or her Japanese-language skills at the same rate as a child attending a Japanese school. Some international schools devote several hours a day to Japanese, and for some families, these would be the best option. But at KAIS, our first priority is English. We have, therefore, made the conscious decision to focus on English; only two classes per week are devoted to Japanese. This ensures that our students are fully proficient and fluent in one language and fairly advanced in another. Parents of students at our school who want their children to be “perfect” in Japanese are advised to have their children attend a cram school or spend part of their vacations in a Japanese school.
Though we respect all religions and their adherents, KAIS is a secular school. We do not reject or edit works of literature or other texts based on religious considerations. In our science classes, we teach “Darwinian” evolution. Thus, parents who do not want their children exposed to the western literary canon or to scientific ideas that challenge or oppose orthodox religious thinking should consider one of the many religion-based international schools that are available in Tokyo. Please note, however, that if their parents request it, we do allow students to skip out of some workshops (sex education, for example). We are quite flexible about such things and do all we can — again, within reason — to make everyone feel at home and their ideas and beliefs respected.