International schools usually refer to schools that provide mother tongue education for foreign nationals living in their own countries, and some also recruit domestic students. International schools refer to schools that follow the education system of foreigners' home countries and provide mother tongue education for foreigners. In recent years, it has developed into a school that can also provide foreign education models for domestic students. Generally speaking, an International School (English: International School) is a school that provides secondary education and below, with a considerable proportion of foreign students and a foreign academic system. Although the term "international school" does not appear in the education law of People's Republic of China (PRC) (China), there are still a series of schools that meet the above definition.

The first category is foreign institutions, foreign-funded enterprises, offices of international organizations in China legally established in China and international schools run by foreigners legally residing (referred to as "international schools run by foreigners" for short), such as Shanghai American School and Guangzhou American International School. The second category is schools that recruit China students at the same time and are qualified to accept foreign students, such as the Foreign Language School affiliated to South China Normal University, Guangzhou Agada International Preparatory School, and Guangzhou Canadian Foreign Children's School. These schools adopt international courses (IB) and have independent campuses. Its curriculum system, educational philosophy, hardware facilities and students constitute an international city school. The third category is the international department set up by local schools. AP and A-Level courses are only open to students in China. Their courses are foreign courses, but the teaching mode, educational concept and student composition are all a combination of Chinese and western. Strictly speaking, these schools are not international schools, such as affiliated high school of south china normal university International Department.