Dubai, UAE · PrivateKings' School Nad Al Sheba is the third and newest school in the Kings' Education family, which has more than five thousand pupils across three Dubai schools and one shared value: the best by every child. The eldest of them, Kings' School Dubai, opened in 2004 and is the only school in the UAE to have held an outstanding rating from the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau every year since inspections began. This school takes children from the age of two and teaches the English national curriculum together with the EYFS: the nursery stage from 2 to 4, Foundation Stage from 3 to 5, primary from 5 to 11, secondary from 11 to 16 with GCSE examinations, and then a Sixth Form with two routes, A Levels and BTECs. The school lists its GCSE subjects in full, and there are three languages in it beyond English - Arabic, French and Spanish - along with Islamic studies, global perspectives, psychology, design technology, food technology, music, drama and dance. The campus stands in extensive grounds close to central Dubai: two swimming pools, a multi-purpose sports hall and a gymnasium, a multi-sport astro pitch, hard courts for netball and basketball, a grass field for football, rugby and hockey, a black box theatre, an auditorium with a stage, music recording facilities and media technologies, a STEM Academy and technology suites, primary and secondary libraries with an e-library, and indoor and outdoor play areas. The campus is fully wireless, every classroom has an Apple TV and an interactive whiteboard, and pupils are issued laptops and iPads. Extracurricular activities run before and after lessons from Year 2, with Year 1 joining in the second term in January: two internal clubs a term are free, external ones cost extra.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · A-Level · authorised programmeBSO · accreditationBSME · part of the associationWhat stands behind each entry
Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.
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: A-Level (ages 16-18). A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →A scheme of the UK Department for Education: a school abroad is inspected against the standards for independent schools in England, including safeguarding and the standards for boarding. The inspections are done by independent inspectorates approved by the department, and the inspectorates themselves are monitored annually by Ofsted. The reports are published in full on the government website.
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 →One hundred and eighty schools in ten countries - Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; more than half of the membership is in the UAE. It runs no inspections of its own at all. Instead it requires somebody else's accreditation, and the requirement is strict: a school not already accredited on joining must gain accreditation within two years and then maintain it. The inspectorates are EDT or ISI, which means the accreditation in question is the British government's BSO scheme. The organisation has withdrawn its former lighter routes in - one route remains.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to the association, and the association requires its members to hold a real accreditation: for Gulf schools that is almost always BSO. What to look at is that accreditation rather than this badge. Nor is the badge empty - there is no inspection of its own behind it, but a school is not admitted to the association without somebody else's accreditation. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →A British vocational qualification from Pearson: not an academic course with an exam at the end, but a programme of practical assignments in a particular trade, from engineering and business to art and sport.
What this means for this school. Teaching and assessment work differently from A-level: instead of written exams there is a run of practical assignments marked by the school, while Pearson checks the school itself and samples the work. British universities do accept BTEC, but not all of them and not for every course: level 3 carries the same UCAS points as A-level, and that is what a family aiming at a particular university should look at. For a child who needs the classic academic route, BTEC is not a replacement for A-level but a different path.