Philadelphia Private School (PPS) Dubai
Dubai, UAE · est. 2006 · PrivatePhiladelphia Private School is a private international day school in Al Qusais, running since 2006 and taking pupils from the Pre-KG group to grade 12. The programme is a double one: the senior school runs a credit-based American course with Advanced Placement subjects, and alongside it the school offers the two-year IB Diploma Programme, so the choice between an American diploma and the IB one is made inside a single school. There are four languages - Arabic, English, French and Spanish - and the school teaches Arabic both as a first and as a second language, while the course itself is delivered in English and Arabic. Among the services named are a college and career guidance counsellor who guides some two hundred students a year, a head of inclusion and support for pupils whose English is not yet enough. The school belongs to the Learner's World International Schools network, which acts as its academic consultant.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · accreditationIB · DP · authorised programmeCollege Board · authorised programmeLearner's World International Schools · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
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 →A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: DP (ages 16-19). 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.
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 →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.
The Learner's World International Schools (LWIS) Network is a school grouping which on its own site describes itself as «5 international schools across Lebanon, Dubai & Riyadh« with an American curriculum, AP courses, «holistic PACER education« and NEASC and Cognia accreditation. In the UAE the network has one school — Philadelphia Private School (PPS) in Dubai; its site says «PPS-Dubai is a member of the Learner's World International Schools (LWIS) Network« and that the network «provides educational and consultancy services to PPS Dubai on an ongoing basis«, acting as its academic consultants. The Lebanese school LWIS-USL repeats the same formula. No founding year or student numbers are given on the network's sites.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.