SABIS International School - Al Bateen
Abu Dhabi, UAE · PrivateSABIS International School - Al Bateen stands in Al Bateen, a residential and commercial neighbourhood of Abu Dhabi, and belongs to the SABIS network alongside the Choueifat schools and the other SABIS International Schools. The school calls itself a highly academic, non-selective, co-educational, English-medium independent day school. In its first year of operation it opens for Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 11 and promises to add at least one level a year until it reaches a full K-12 offering. The exit is an American one: a US high school diploma recognised by universities worldwide, and alongside it Advanced Placement courses from the College Board, IGCSE, AS and A Level examinations, the UAE national examinations and the SAT. The main thing a parent should know: the school is new and grows by one level a year, and on its own pages it still describes its campus in the future tense.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmeSABIS · part of the networkCollege Board · authorised programmeSABIS · school is part of the networkWhat 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: IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. 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 →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 →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.
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.