← Back to homeRoyal American School
Abu Dhabi, UAE · est. 1996 · Private
Illustration · Abu Dhabi
Royal American School is a private school in Abu Dhabi, in Shabiya 12 in Mussafah next to the Shabiya bus station; the school itself calls its district MBZ. It was founded in 1996 and worked then out of a villa, moving to its present campus in 2009. The main thing a parent should know: classes are mixed only up to and including grade 4, and from grade 5 to grade 12 boys and girls are taught separately. The pupils, the school writes, are mainly of Arabic heritage, and more than 98 per cent are Muslim. For 2026-2027 the school has opened admission to KG1 from the age of four, KG2 from five and grade 1 from six. The buses are its own, with a member of the security staff on board and real-time tracking. The school publishes twenty policies of its own - from admission, the curriculum and assessment to child protection, student protection, student wellbeing, cyber bullying, healthy eating, bag weight, mobile phones and parking. What the school nowhere writes is its curriculum: it names it neither American nor British nor ministerial, and the tuition itself is published as images from which the figures cannot be read.
Key facts
Admissions For 2026-2027 the school opened admission to KG1 with a minimum age of 4, KG2 from 5 and grade 1 from 6. Registration goes through its own portal, and the school offers help with the paperwork from the registrar by telephone. It gives no list of documents and no registration fee figure.
Stages and year groups Grades KG1 from age 4 - grade 12. Classes are mixed up to and including grade 4; from grade 5 to grade 12 boys and girls are taught separately. The accreditation certificate the school publishes itself was granted for grades KG-12. The school publishes no school day and no hours for it: the contact page gives only office hours, Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 18:00.
Address Shabiya 12, Mussafah
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · 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
CogniaCognia, formerly AdvancED
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
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 poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: The school has occupied its present campus since 2009, having worked out of a villa before that. It gives no list of facilities: the pages that were read name only the teaching spaces shown in the gallery photographs. The buses are its own, with a member of the security staff on board and real-time tracking.
Teaching staff
The school publishes neither the number of its teachers nor their qualifications.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
·Counsellornot stated on the website
✓Child protection policy
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
✓Anti-bullying policy
The school publishes its own child protection and student protection policies, a student behaviour policy, a cyber bullying policy and a student wellbeing policy that mentions mental and physical health and responsive counselling - twenty documents in all, from admission and the curriculum to bag weight and parking. The school names no medical room, nurse, psychologist, CCTV or security staff on the site itself; security it names on the buses: a member of the security staff on board and real-time tracking.
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 data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data65 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median68 "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