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Abu Dhabi, UAE · Private
Illustration · Abu Dhabi
The Australian School of Abu Dhabi stands in Shakhbout City, on the corner of the eleventh and the thirty-second streets, and runs all three stages of the International Baccalaureate in a row, from the preparatory group to the twelfth grade, laying them over the Australian curriculum frameworks. It calls itself an affordable Baccalaureate school, and the price bears that out: from 15,600 AED a year in the preparatory group to 37,030 in the graduating grades, which for Abu Dhabi is the bottom of the market. The 2026 cohort passed the diploma programme in full: a hundred percent pass rate, an average score between 34 and 35 against the world average of 30.88, and the best pupil scored 43 out of 45. The campus is gathered into one building: an indoor heated pool of 27 metres with a depth of 2.5 metres and a separate small pool of 0.65 for those who are only learning to swim, an air-conditioned hall, a football pitch, a library with a shelf of Baccalaureate resources, a canteen, a mosque on the second level and a hall of 620 seats with its own lighting and sound. The youngest eat in class, and from the sixth grade in the canteen. Fluent English is not required on entry, and the school writes so plainly: the language it undertakes to develop itself. Child protection is written up in detail and by role: the child protection coordinator chairs a committee seating the head of school, the head of inclusion, the school social worker, the nurse and the occupational safety officer; security is on duty around the clock, and video surveillance covers entrances, corridors, play areas and classrooms, except the toilets. Neither its year of foundation, nor pupil numbers, nor the number of teachers does the school publish, and where its leavers go it does not name either.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $4 248–10 083 a year
15 600–37 030 AED
Programmes
IB · PYP, MYP, DP
Admits from
4 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees The grid for the 2025-2026 academic year is set out as a table on the school's own fees page, in dirhams per academic year: the preparatory groups KG1 and KG2 - 15,600, the first and second grades - 19,270, the third - 20,800, the fourth - 20,920, the fifth - 22,310, the sixth to the eighth - from 25,320 to 27,340, the ninth - 30,850, the tenth - 30,770, the eleventh and twelfth - 37,030. In separate columns the school prints transport 4,428, uniform 500 in the lower grades and 700 from the sixth, books 1,500 and 2,500 respectively. The payment is split into three equal parts with deadlines of 26 August, 10 December and 10 March.
Admissions The school takes children of any ability, any citizenship and any religion, provided they can study on its programmes, and it asks for no previous International Baccalaureate experience. Fluent English is not needed on entry: the school writes plainly that it develops the language itself, and it keeps a support programme of English as an additional language for that. The inclusion service works with special educational needs, disability, giftedness and learners of English, and the school promises reasonable adjustments to the standards of the Baccalaureate and of the Abu Dhabi department of education. Age is counted on 31 August, on the department's grid. When there are not enough places, priority runs in this order: brothers and sisters of current pupils, those moving from other Baccalaureate schools, children of staff, returning former pupils. For the preparatory groups, instead of an examination there is an informal visit to a class where staff watch the child and discuss the support needed with the family; from the first to the twelfth grade applicants sit entrance papers in the core subjects, to settle the grade and the amount of support, and all of them go in English. Documents: passports, visas and identity cards of the child and the parents, birth certificate, photograph, vaccination card, reports for two years, an attested transfer certificate and, where they exist, assessment reports and an individual education plan. An application the school promises to consider within five working days, to give a first answer within one or two, and to report the result of the entrance paper within five.
Stages and year groups Grades KG1 - Grade 12. The school runs the full continuous line of the International Baccalaureate: the primary stage covers KG1 to the fifth grade, the middle one the sixth to the tenth, the diploma one the eleventh and twelfth. The age grid is set by the requirements of the Abu Dhabi department of education and knowledge and is counted on 31 August: KG1 - 4-5 years, KG2 - 5-6, the first grade - 6-7 and so on, a year per grade up to the twelfth grade at 17-18. In exceptional cases the school shifts the year group for academic and for emotional and social reasons. Arabic starts at the primary stage and Islamic studies from the first grade; everything else goes in English, apart from Islamic studies, social studies and Arabic for local pupils.
Address Corner of Streets 11 and 32, Shakbout City, Abu Dhabi, PO Box 36044
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · PYP, MYP, 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: PYP (ages 3-12), MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). PYP is the primary stage, ages 3 to 12. It is not a set of subjects but a frame for the whole school: learning is built around lines of inquiry, and there are no exams at the end. MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. 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
Exam results The 2026 cohort: the diploma programme of the International Baccalaureate was passed by all, and the school names its average not as a number but as a range, 34-35, against the world average of 30.88, while the best pupil scored 43 out of 45. The school itself converts its average into the familiar scales: 34-35 is 3.5 on GPA and AAA-AAB at A-level. Candidate numbers the school does not give.
Facilities from the school's official website
✓Swimming poolAn indoor heated pool of 27 metres with a depth of 2.5 metres and a small teaching pool 0.65 metres deep, for the youngest and for beginners.
✓Sports hallA fully air-conditioned hall: from simple movement for the youngest to supervised strength work for the oldest.
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hallA hall of 620 seats with its own lighting and sound: assemblies, orchestra and choir, drama productions, conferences.
✓LibraryA library with books and a separate shelf of International Baccalaureate resources.
✓CateringA canteen with optional breakfast and lunch for KG1 to the twelfth grade; up to the fifth grade the food is brought to the classrooms, and the older pupils eat in the canteen.
✓School transportBuses across the districts of Abu Dhabi, 4,428 AED a year by the fees table.
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: One building in Shakhbout City. A mosque on the second level for common prayer and for Islamic studies lessons, as the Ministry of Education of the UAE requires.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
✓CCTV
✓Security staff
✓Access control
✓Nurse or medical room
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
✓Staff training
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Child protection the school sets out by role. It is led by the child protection coordinator, who is also the head of the pupil behaviour and wellbeing service and who also chairs the protection committee, which seats the head of school, the head of inclusion, the school social worker, the school nurse and the occupational safety officer; the committee answers for carrying the rules out, for oversight and for their yearly review. All new staff are trained on joining - how to recognise harm, how to record a case, how to act in an emergency, how to keep confidentiality - the training is repeated every year, and for members of the committee and for the coordinator it is held separately. Visitors and contractors read and sign the protection rules before work begins. Security is on duty around the clock at entrances and exits, visitors are entered in a log, and a pass system is in place. Video surveillance is installed and maintained by licensed contractors, and entrances, corridors, play areas, pick-up zones and classrooms are covered; there are no cameras in the toilets. A concern may be reported to the coordinator, to the head of school or through the committee, and the person reporting is protected from disclosure and from retaliation. As separate documents the school puts up its rules on protecting a pupil, including a version for the children themselves, and rules on bullying, on mental health, on wellbeing and on school specialists.
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%)95 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 data90 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data90 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 "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