← Back to homeAl Durrah International School
Sharjah, UAE · est. 2015 · Private
Illustration · Sharjah
The school stands at the crossing of Al Nahda and Al Khan streets, opened in 2015 and teaches about 1200 children on the American curriculum, from the preparatory group to the twelfth year. The school day runs from seven in the morning to three in the afternoon. The school holds its accreditation with NEASC and separately names partnerships with universities: the American University of Sharjah under the Sharakah programme, the University of Sharjah, Ajman University, the Canadian University Dubai and the branch of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Senior pupils are prepared for SAT and TOEFL iBT and are taken through the school's own university guidance service from the ninth year; of its leavers the school writes that everyone who applied to university received at least one offer, and some several. Life outside lessons is set out in detail: a dozen clubs from robotics and science to drama, music and chess, three sports clubs and a long yearly round of school days and weeks, from Flag Day and National Day to Pi Day, the marathon and Business Day. Tuition the school puts up only as a picture, with no figures in the text, and about its campus, its teachers and summer sessions it says nothing at all.
Key facts
Admits from
3 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English
Admissions Children come from different countries, but through selection: the school writes itself that it checks whether a child suits it. After the documents are submitted every applicant sits an entrance test and, if needed, an interview with the admissions committee, and the school then issues one of four decisions: a guaranteed place, a waiting list, a retest or a refusal. It asks for a great many documents: passports of the child and the parents with a valid residence visa, originals and copies of identity cards, three recent photographs, a copy of the vaccination card, a copy of the birth certificate, for UAE citizens the family book, an attested transfer certificate and reports from the previous school for two years, a certificate of continuing education, medical insurance for the child and the school medical file. Registration with the Sharjah Private Education Authority is a separate step. The school announces no restrictions by sex, faith or citizenship.
Stages and year groups Grades Pre-KG - Grade 12. The school writes that it teaches 1200 children from the preparatory group to the twelfth year. The SPEA register lists its stages as KG1, KG2 and years 1 to 12, and records the curriculum as American. The university guidance service works separately with the ninth to the twelfth year.
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
College Board · authorised programmeNEASC · accreditationschool is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
College BoardCollege Board, the AP programme
An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Authorisation here runs a year at a time: the register lists the school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →NEASCNew England Association of Schools and Colleges
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →AP
Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results The school prepares its senior pupils for the international standardised examinations SAT and TOEFL iBT and names them directly, but it publishes no average scores, no pass rates and no AP results.
Where leavers go: American University of Sharjah · University of Sharjah · Ajman University · Canadian University Dubai · Gulf Medical University · Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai · University of Toronto · Ryerson University · University of the Fraser Valley · College of the North Atlantic · University of South Florida · University of Iowa
and others, 16 universities in the school's list in allThe school writes that all of its leavers who applied to university received an offer from at least one institution of their choice, and some from several at once. The share of leavers going on to university it does not name.
Facilities
The school does not describe its premises on its website.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
The school writes that removing barriers to learning and attention to the whole child, personal, social and academic alike, is the first duty of every member of staff, and it keeps a separate university guidance service which, it says, is open to pupils at any moment. Neither the number of teachers, nor their composition, nor class sizes, nor the pupil-teacher ratio does it give.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
·Counsellornot stated on the website
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The school keeps a separate pupil care and wellbeing service and describes it as watching over the child along three lines at once, the personal, the social and the academic, and it also runs a separate strand for inclusion and for work with gifted pupils. The child protection policy itself, anti-bullying rules, the order in which complaints are made and reviewed, staff training, and a clinic and a counsellor the school does not name on its pages.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)63 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median81 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 7 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country