← Back to homeAmerican Academy for Girls
Dubai, UAE · est. 2005 · Private
Illustration · Dubai
American Academy for Girls is an American school in the Mirdif area of Dubai, part of the Taaleem network, running since 2005. The main thing a parent needs to know: the school is co-educational only in the early years, from pre-kindergarten to KG2, and from grade one to grade twelve it is a school for girls only. The programme is American, with Advanced Placement courses in the senior grades. The language of instruction is American English; every pupil learns Arabic from pre-kindergarten to grade twelve, and French is added from grade nine. It holds two accreditations, both since 2010: NEASC and the Council of International Schools. The campus is large and well equipped: a shaded outdoor swimming pool, a multi-purpose sports hall, a large outdoor sports field, two libraries, art studios, a pottery room, laboratories, music rooms, an innovation hub and a canteen of its own called Slices. Extracurricular activities run from grade one to grade twelve, and sport is provided together with East Sports Management for an extra charge. Leavers go on to study in the United States, the UAE, the United Kingdom, Europe, Egypt and the Philippines.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $9 935–17 773 a year
36 485–65 270 AED
Programmes
AP · American programme
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Arabic, French
About the fees The annual fee is 36,485 dirhams for pre-kindergarten, 38,595 for KG1, 40,695 for KG2, 49,250 for grades one to four, 57,860 for grades five to eight and 65,270 for grades nine to twelve. It is paid in three termly parts. Re-registration costs 2,000 dirhams. A 10 per cent discount applies to the third and each subsequent child in a family attending any Taaleem school in Dubai. Textbooks are issued on loan and returned at the end of the term or the year. The fee can be split into interest-free instalments by card. A small charge applies for materials in some activities, and sports run with the external provider are paid for separately.
Admissions The year group is set by age on 1 September: pre-kindergarten takes three-year-olds, KG1 four-year-olds, and so on a year per grade up to grade twelve, entered at seventeen. All children in the early years must be toilet trained before they start. Admission runs through an online application, and the school invites every interested family to visit on an ordinary school day. Re-registration for the following year is confirmed by a stated deadline, otherwise the place may be offered to an external applicant; where fees are outstanding, re-registration does not go ahead.
Stages and year groups Grades pre-kindergarten - grade 12, ages 3 to 18. The stages run straight through: the Early Childhood Program is pre-kindergarten, KG1 and KG2, followed by Elementary, Middle and High School up to grade twelve. In the early years the school is co-educational; from grade one to graduation it is for girls only.
Address Mirdif Area, Al-Mizhar 1, off Algeria Street, Corner 11A and 4A Street
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
CIS · accreditationNEASC · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeschool 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
CISCouncil of International Schools
It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.
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 →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 →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 →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.
American programme
The American school programme, with the High School Diploma at the end. It usually comes together with AP courses, which the College Board stands behind, and with an American accreditation - MSA, NEASC or Cognia.
What this means for this school. The diploma is written out by the school itself: the American programme has no common leaving exam, and the content of the senior years is set by the school. Outside checking therefore rests on two things here - the accreditation of the school, and the AP exams if the school runs them.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Art studio · Playground
Campus: A campus with ICT suites, science laboratories, music rooms, two libraries, art studios and a pottery room, a multi-purpose sports hall, a large outdoor sports field, a shaded outdoor swimming pool, a kindergarten playroom, a shaded outdoor playground, a canteen called Slices, wireless internet throughout and an innovation hub.
Clubs and activities (18): Model United Nations · Book club · Football · Trampolining · Badminton · Robotics · Painting · Cookery and baking · Swimming · Public speaking · Student leadership · Theatre · Advanced gymnastics · Arabic club · Study trips · Quran reading club · Teen-to-Teen club · House captains
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
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%)75 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)95 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "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 8 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