The International School of Choueifat - Umm Al Quwain
Umm al Quwain, UAE · est. 1992 · PrivateThe International School of Choueifat - Umm Al Quwain has been running since 1992 and belongs to the SABIS network, which means it teaches that network's own system from kindergarten to grade 12. Teaching is in English, and the curriculum takes students to fluency in Arabic and French as well. The emphasis is on English and mathematics, and in the secondary years on the sciences, where students prepare for the British IGCSEs and the American Advanced Placement programme; the curriculum also includes non-traditional subjects - robotics, 3D printing, web development - along with psychology, business and economics. The campus is spacious and strong on sport: a state-of-the-art sports field with an all-season running track, a semi-Olympic pool, a separate kindergarten pool, a large well-equipped sports hall, a gymnasium and outdoor basketball courts. There is a school theatre with professional sound and lighting, an art room and a music room, three laboratories for biology, chemistry and physics, two computer science rooms, a library with books in English, Arabic and French and computers for research, and a bright cafeteria where students can eat food brought from home or buy sandwiches and fruit. The distinctive feature is the SABIS Integrated Testing and Learning hall with 580 computers. The kindergarten occupies a separate building with colourful hallways, a large playground and a car track; classrooms from Pre-KG to grade 12 have interactive whiteboards. Two medical doctors are on site at all times in their clinics. Learning support is a system: teacher-led study groups, peer tutoring through the Student Life Organization, power study sessions, academic competitions and teaching videos recorded by students. From grade 4 there are weekly advising classes, and from grade 9 university counselling with preparation for the ACT, SAT, TOEFL and IELTS. After lessons, from grade 1 to grade 12, there are clubs and training for the school teams in basketball, football, volleyball, swimming and athletics, and a Champs Ahead basketball academy led by Fadi Al Khatib. In 2025 leavers were admitted to the British universities of Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham and York.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationSABIS · part of the networkCollege Board · authorised programmeSABIS · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
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 →Lebanese in origin, with more than seventy thousand pupils in twenty-one countries. It works in different ways: through its own schools, by running other people's under contract, and by simply selling the programme to a school that stays under its own management.
What the badge means for this school. The relationship is set out in a commercial contract. Under the licensing model SABIS neither owns nor runs the school at all: the badge means a package of programmes and methods was bought, not that anyone vouches for how the school works. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 →Programmes of the University of Cambridge: the school teaches to Cambridge syllabuses and enters its pupils for exams that Cambridge marks itself. IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate.
What this means for this school. The papers are marked by Cambridge, not by the school, so a leaver's grade does not depend on how strict their own teachers are with them. To enter pupils for these exams a school has to be registered as a Cambridge exam centre; registration as a centre is permission to run exams rather than accreditation of the school, and it says nothing about the quality of teaching. IGCSE is taken at around Year 10 or 11 and A-Level in the final years, and it is the A-Level results that carry a pupil into British and many other universities.
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.
A programme written by the school or its operator, with no independent organisation behind it: the rules are written by the same people who teach to them. There is no outside register to check such a programme against.
What this means for this school. This does not mean the teaching is poor: it means the content can be judged only from the school's own account of it. What to look at here is something else - the accreditation of the school as a whole, and the outside exams its leavers sit.