← Back to homeInternational Academic School
Dubai, UAE · est. 2006 · Private
Illustration · Dubai
International Academic School opened in Dubai in September 2006 and stands in Al Warqa 1. It has around 1,500 students. The programme is American, on the State of California standards, while Arabic and Islamic Studies follow the UAE Ministry of Education curriculum; in grades 11-12 the school offers AP courses, and among its electives business studies, journalism and computer programming. The campus is built around science and technology: robotics, physics, chemistry, biology and ICT laboratories, a main library, a prayer room, a canteen, a swimming pool, a green playground, a multipurpose covered area and a separate special needs facility. The school writes separately about accessibility: wheelchair ramps at the entrances and access gates across the campus. Admission goes stage by stage: KG1-KG2 by an interactive session with no academic testing, grade 1 by age, then by readiness and assessments, and grades 9-12 need transcripts and course credits from the previous school. The main thing a parent needs to know: the fee figures cannot be read on the site - the school keeps them in an image - though the discounts are set out in detail.
Key facts
Languages of instruction
English
About the fees There are no fee figures on the site: the fees page keeps the table as an image, which could not be read. The only number the school states is the registration fee - 525 dirhams including VAT, non-refundable, for new students. The discounts are set out in detail: 3 per cent for a second child, 5 for a third and beyond, a 3 per cent welcome discount for new Pre-KG, KG1 and KG2 entrants, 3 per cent for military and police, 3 for medical staff, 4 per cent for payment in full by 31 July and 3 by 31 August. Discounts from this set do not combine, except the welcome discount, which can be added to the sibling and early-payment discounts.
Admissions The school takes applications all year round where places exist. The sequence is an enquiry form, a tour of the school, a reply from the school if there is a place, and a waiting list on which siblings have priority. In KG1-KG2 a play session takes the place of a test, and looks at independence and speech; entry to grade 1 goes by age, with a test that is optional and can be taken online; in grades 2-5 and 6-8 readiness and tests decide, again with the tests available online; in grades 9-12 a leaving certificate and transcripts from the previous school are needed and subject tests are possible. For children with English as an additional language, for children with special needs and for gifted children the school follows a separate procedure under KHDA rules. The documents required are photographs, a birth certificate, an immunisation record, a passport with visa, family documents, a medical record and reports or a transfer certificate.
Stages and year groups Grades KG1 - grade 12. The stages are kindergarten KG1-KG2, primary grades 1-5, middle school grades 6-8 and high school grades 9-12. In grades 11 and 12 the school offers AP courses and elective subjects aimed at professional preparation: business, journalism and programming.
Address Al Warqa 1
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
ACS WASC · 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
ACS WASCAccrediting Commission for Schools of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
An American regional accreditation of the institution, working since 1962 and covering some 5,500 schools in California, the Pacific and Asia. It judges the whole school: a self-study, then a team visit. It gives the same status to supplementary and virtual programmes, so the category of an entry is worth checking separately.
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.
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 hallnot stated on the website
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
✓Catering
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Playground
Campus: Robotics, physics, chemistry, biology and ICT laboratories, a main library, a prayer room, a canteen, a swimming pool, a green playground, a multipurpose covered area and a special needs facility. The campus is made accessible: wheelchair ramps at the entrances and access gates throughout.
Teaching staff
There is no data for this section yet.
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%)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 data55 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 data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median65 "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