Emirates National Schools - Abu Dhabi City Campus
Abu Dhabi, UAE · est. 2002 · PrivateEmirates National Schools is a network of six campuses that opened in 2002 in Mohammed Bin Zayed City and has since spread across three emirates: three campuses in the emirate of Abu Dhabi (Mohammed Bin Zayed City, Abu Dhabi City and Al Ain) and one each in Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Dubai. Teaching runs from Pre-K to grade 12 and is bilingual in its design: English is the main language, Arabic is compulsory, and Arabic, Islamic education and social studies follow the UAE Ministry of Education programme. The academic frame is made of three parts: the International Baccalaureate programmes, the American Common Core standards in English, mathematics and science, and the College Board's Advanced Placement courses in grades 11 and 12. The day at most campuses runs from 7:30 to 14:45 Monday to Thursday and until 11:00 on Friday. There is a school bus under contract with a carrier, a canteen of its own, a licensed clinic with registered nurses and a strict nut-free rule. Student support is organised into services: a school counsellor at every campus, academic and career guidance counsellors, a student protection team, a behaviour management committee and an inclusion department with learning support assistants and individual plans. Co-curricular activities run in eight-week cycles from grade 1 to grade 12: student governance, drama, speech and debate, basketball, rugby, martial arts, volleyball, football, swimming and track and field. The network awards up to a hundred scholarships a year covering from a quarter to all of the tuition, on two grounds - academic merit and talent.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · accreditationWhat stands behind each entry
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
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 →The International Baccalaureate: programmes of a Swiss organisation, among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Each stage is authorised separately, so a school may hold one of them, two, or all four. 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.
What this means for this school. Authorisation for each stage is granted by the organisation itself after an on-site visit, and a school has to go through it again every few years. Every authorised school in the world stands in the open register at ibo.org, where the status can be checked independently. The IB diploma is awarded by the organisation rather than by the school, and the papers are marked by external examiners, so a leaver's grade does not depend on how strict their own school is with them.
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.
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.