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Kent College Dubai

Dubai, UAE · est. 2016 · Private

Illustration · Dubai

One thing about this school has to be known before everything else: it is changing its name. In the GIAS register of British schools overseas the entry with URN 149788 already stands as Rugby School Dubai - from the 2026/27 year - while the school itself on its site still calls itself Kent College Dubai and does not mention the new name once. The entry carries the name the school calls itself by today, and names the change out loud: a parent looking for the school by its sign will have to hold both names in mind. The school opened in 2016 and stands in Nad Al Sheba 2, by Meydan South, just off Al Ain Road. Its sister is Kent College in Canterbury, with a history of more than one hundred and thirty-five years. It carries a child unusually long: from 45 days in its own Kent Nursery, then FS1 and the junior school to the sixth year, then the senior school to Year 13 with A-level. Its pupils the school gathers from 91 nationalities. The programme is the national curriculum of England: in the junior school English, mathematics and science as the core, and with them the arts, physical education, computing, geography and history, compulsory Arabic, Islamic studies from the third year for Muslim pupils, UAE social studies and moral education. The class teacher takes everything except physical education, Arabic, Islamic studies and performing arts - those go to specialists, and the school says that almost all its class teachers are British and that a British teaching qualification or one equal to it is held by all of them. Its rooms the school describes generously: music, design and technology and food technology rooms, laboratories, a hall of 458 seats, several sports pitches, tennis and volleyball courts, cricket areas and a swimming pool with climate control. Care for the child rests on the class teacher in the junior school and on a form tutor in the senior school, above them stand heads of year who keep in touch with the family; three times a week there are twenty-minute sessions about behaviour, relationships, online safety, health, attendance and study habits. The child protection policy the school publishes, and on its home page stands a direct commitment to safeguard the child, which it requires of all its staff as well. The main inconvenience for a parent: its own fee the school keeps on a page closed to reading - its price list and its own fee document for 2025-2026 are closed to automated reading, as are the pages of facilities, activities and the senior stage. Numbers of pupils, examination results and a list of universities are not on the school's open pages either.