← Back to homeAustralian International School, Sharjah
Sharjah, UAE · Private
Illustration · Sharjah
The Australian International School stands in Sharjah, on Maleha Street, and holds to one idea: it is the only school in the UAE that runs the Australian curriculum whole, from the nursery group to the twelfth grade, and it was the first in the country to enter a teaching partnership with the Australian government. There are more than 1800 pupils, and they have come from more than fifty countries. The school calls its campus one of the largest in the UAE: three big ovals and five play areas, laboratories, performing arts spaces. The school day runs from 8:15 to 14:55. Everything the school does outside lessons it packs into five pillars: academics, culture, sport, community and wellbeing, and once a semester it marks the best in each of them at separate assemblies. Its trips are long and real: mountain camps in Gstaad, ski weeks in the French and the Japanese Alps, a thirteen-day service expedition to Vietnam, a trip to Kenya, and the senior grades travel to a theatre and history week in London. Since 2013 the school has run the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. A separate part of the campus is the Oasis, a support centre with speech and occupational therapy rooms, counsellors and the ASDAN programme for those who need a different route. The twelfth grade is finished along two paths: the Queensland Certificate of Education or the International Baccalaureate diploma. The school does not name its year of foundation, and three different spans stand on its own pages. Tuition by grade it does not publish either: only the tariffs of the nursery group and of the early childhood centre are set out openly.
Key facts
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees Openly the school publishes only the tariffs of the early years on its fees page, in three instalments for the academic year: the nursery group - 42,290 AED for four days a week, 31,717 for three days, 21,145 for two days (and 10,572 for the shortened version of two days), the preparatory year Pre-ELC - 42,289, the early childhood centre ELC - 38,077 for a short day and the same for a long day plus 4,212 for After Core wraparound care. In the first row of the table, the one for four days a week, the school has a misprint: the first instalment is printed as 169,134 AED instead of 16,913, which makes the total in the same row come out as 194,508; the correct total for that row is 42,290, and it stands in the second row of the same table. The tariffs do not include uniform, transport, meals and additional support. Tuition by grade, from the first to the twelfth, is not on the school's pages.
Admissions The school admits without selection: it writes that it is open to families who share its values and that it takes children of differing abilities, and for those who need extra support there is the Oasis centre with speech and occupational therapy, counsellors and the ASDAN programme. The year group is set by age on 31 August, under the rules of the Ministry of Education of the UAE. An application is made through the form on the site or at reception, after which the family brings in a pack of documents; for a transfer from the second grade upwards all certificates and reports must be attested while still in the previous country. Then an interview is arranged: from the early childhood centre to the ninth grade it runs about thirty minutes and stretches to sixty if assessment is needed; in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades it is sixty minutes together with drawing up a SET Plan and a meeting with a senior mentor. Children younger than the early childhood centre need no interview. A day before the meeting the school calls to confirm it. After the interview the family signs an enrolment contract, and the last word belongs to the head of school.
Stages and year groups Grades Nursery - Grade 12. The school runs the Australian curriculum of the state of Queensland from the nursery group to the twelfth grade and calls itself the only one in the UAE to run it whole. The early years are laid out as the nursery group (patterns of two, three and four days a week, from 6:30 to 17:00), the preparatory year Pre-ELC and the early childhood centre ELC with a short and a long day. The middle and the senior school run from the seventh to the twelfth grade across eight subject areas: English, mathematics, science, health and physical education, humanities and social sciences, the arts, technologies and languages, plus Arabic and Islamic studies. The school day is from 8:15 to 14:55, with small differences by year group.
Address Maleha St, Warehouses Land, Sharjah
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · 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
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
✓LaboratoriesScience and technology laboratories.
✓Theatre or assembly hallPerforming arts spaces.
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
✓School transportRun by the outside carrier Emirates Transport.
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field · Playground
Campus: The school calls its campus one of the largest in the UAE: three big ovals and five play areas. A separate part of it is the Oasis support centre, with purpose-built therapy rooms. Its own facilities page describes the campus in general words - science and technology laboratories, performing arts spaces, sports fields and rooms for wellbeing - and names neither a library, nor a pool, nor a sports hall, nor a canteen by name.
Clubs and activities: Netball · Football · Swimming · Touch rugby · Basketball · Duke of Edinburgh's Award · Global Explorers expeditions
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
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
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The school has a separate support service, a pupil wellbeing and support team, and a physical place for it: the Oasis centre, where speech and occupational therapists and counselling psychologists work in purpose-built rooms. The school describes the Oasis as a safe and confidential space where a pupil may come with their thoughts, feelings and difficulties, and it names what is helped with there: transitions between stages of life, coping with stress and relationships with peers. Neither a child protection policy, nor the person responsible for it, nor a clinic with a nurse, nor security staff, nor video surveillance does the school 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%)82 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 data60 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 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