SABIS International School - Aljada
Sharjah, UAE · est. 2021 · PrivateSABIS International School - Aljada opened in 2021 in the new Aljada district of Sharjah and belongs to the international SABIS network. It teaches the SABIS system, which joins American, British and Emirati schooling: the high school runs four years from grade 9 and ends in an American diploma, while the student chooses the examinations - IGCSE and AS/A Level with Cambridge, AP and SAT or ACT with the College Board, or the UAE national examinations. Teaching is in English only and the school is a day school. The campus is new and strong on sport: a semi-Olympic swimming pool, an indoor basketball and tennis court, an outdoor basketball court and a full-size football pitch ringed by a running track; the kindergarten has its own heated pool and a car track for child-sized carts. There is a theatre, a cafeteria, a library, science and computer laboratories and a separate ITL hall for computerised examinations. The main thing a parent needs to know: the school does not print fee figures on its site - only a link to a separate file - so the price has to be asked for.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
MSA · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeSABIS · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
One of the oldest American accreditations, working since 1887 in more than a hundred countries and linked to the Office of Overseas Schools of the US State Department. It judges the school as an institution across twelve areas, including finances, governance, premises and student support.
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 →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 →Programmes of the University of Cambridge: the school teaches to Cambridge syllabuses and enters its pupils for exams that Cambridge marks itself. 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.
What this means for this school. The papers are marked by Cambridge, not by the school, so a leaver's grade does not depend on how strict their own teachers are with them. To enter pupils for these exams a school has to be registered as a Cambridge exam centre; registration as a centre is permission to run exams rather than accreditation of the school, and it says nothing about the quality of teaching. IGCSE is taken at around Year 10 or 11 and A-Level in the final years, and it is the A-Level results that carry a pupil into British and many other universities.
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.
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.
An international educational network with a teaching method of its own. Its directory holds 54 schools in 20 countries, and these are only the schools of the network: organisations that have bought the method alone under licence are not in the directory - there is no licensee category in it at all.
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.