The International School of Aberdeen is a purpose-built private educational facility built around Pitfodels House on North Deeside Road in the Braeside district of the city. The school is fee-paying and multi-cultural, with 500 pupils aged between 3 to 18, representing around 45 nationalities from six continents, including 200 drawn from the local area. The building comprises two teaching wings with 40 classrooms, science labs, performing arts studios, a 300-seat theatre and a well-equipped library. Sports facilities include all-weather playing fields, tennis courts, a 25m swimming pool and climbing wall. The school is one of only four in Scotland that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, rather than nationally-regulated qualifications.
The school opened in 1972 on the site of a former convalescent hospital on Craigton Road in Cults to educate the children of those working in the booming oil industry, originally mostly coming from the USA, hence its original name - the American School of Aberdeen. Much of the funding was provided by the oil companies with a presence in the city. It was successful and grew to the point that another property was acquired in 1980 to house the Elementary School - Fairgirth in Milltimber. The entire school relocated to this site in 1996. Unfortunately in 2005, the school found itself on the route of the proposed Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route and therefore the Scottish Government were to fund the construction of the current campus to enable a further move.
Pitfodels House is a two-storey granite-built villa dating from 1881, with an unusual rounded corner bays connected by a balcony on the first floor. It was Category-C listed in 1981, but the listing was removed in 2016 following the school development. The Pitfodels Estate had been the property of the Menzies family from the 16th C. until 1805.
