Chefoo School was described by a former student: "On the rising ground looking out across a sleepy, sun-kissed bay, there stood a group of rambling, ivy-covered, neo-Gothic buildings...For nearly fifty years these gracious, elegant, mellowing buildings were the home of a great English boarding school...where children of missionaries from all over China and children of other foreign residents received a Bible-oriented, English 'public school' education up to Oxford Certificate level...the School survived the Boxer Rebellion, plague, tropical diseases, bandits and piracy on the China seas, but its greatest test came in the nineteen forties" during World War II.

[1] During the war the Japanese army took control of the school, and the students and staff were moved to the Weihsien Internment Camp.

Chefoo School Kuling Campus was established in 1947 and survived until 1951 when it was closed by the Chinese communist government.

The Chefoo School grew rapidly and in 1905 had 226 boys and 193 girls enrolled from China Inland Mission parents.

In 1940, in one exceptional case, 6-year old David Michell left his parents' home in remote Guiyang on 8 October and travelling by truck, railroad, and ship, accompanied by other students and teacher escorts and delayed by the war between Japan and China, did not arrive in Chefoo until January 1941.

"[10] CIM policy demanded that its missionaries wear Chinese clothing and live a Chinese lifestyle, but the children of CIM missionaries attended a school in which an objective was to prepare the students for an elite higher education in England—an education and elite status many of their parents did not have.

With a few belongings they walked to Temple Hill, an abandoned missionary compound in the city of Chefoo, and there were housed in crowded conditions until September 1943.

Forty-seven of this total, all Americans, were repatriated to the United States in September 1943, leaving 205 interned "Chefusians," nearly all British, including 96 unaccompanied children.

)[16] In September 1943, the staff and students of Chefoo school were loaded onto first a ship and later trucks and transported to the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center, an internment camp located in the interior part of Shandong province.

[17] The Chefoo students arriving at Weihsien "had grown up in a very cloistered, old-fashioned, Bible-reading, soul-saving religious community.

"[18] In Weihsien they found themselves members of a community of 1,500 people, mostly British and from all walks of life: businessmen, scholars, Roman Catholic priests, liberal Christians, an African-American jazz band, and more than a few prostitutes, derelicts, and criminals.

An internee described the dilapidated compound, about 6 acres (2.4 ha) in size, as "bare walls, bare floors, dim electric lights, no running water, primitive latrines, two houses with showers, three huge public kitchens, a desecrated church, and a dismantled hospital.

Student Mary Previte said that she never feared for her own safety in the camp, although rumors circulated among the adults that the Japanese were going to kill all the internees.

Thirty-seven Chefoo students took the School Certificate Examination while in the camp and 34 passed, becoming eligible for admission to Britain's best universities.

A Salvation Army band began playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the prisoners hoisted their rescuers onto their shoulders.

Others said, "one big happy family," and "a wonderful atmosphere of sheer joyful faith, understanding, infinite patience, and love of the staff."

The negative views included: "a Public School transplanted to the East with vast overdoses of religion" and "an isolated and abnormal society, fascinating but not healthy.

Another student, Kathleen Strange, lamenting the long years separated from her parents, criticized the sternness of the school and the lack of affection from teachers.

During the war, branches of the Chefoo School were temporarily opened at (Kiating) (1941–1944) (in a part of China not occupied by Japan), Kalimpong, India (1944–1946) and Shanghai (1946–1947).

Staff and students of Chefoo School withdrew to Hong Kong between February and April 1951, where missionary parents waited for their children.

[31][32] Following the redeployment of missionaries throughout east Asia, new Chefoo schools were established in Japan (1951–1998), Malaya/Malaysia (1952–2001), Thailand (1952–1954), Taiwan (1954–1961), and the Philippines (1956–1981).