← Back to homeSchool of Modern Skills
Dubai, UAE · est. 2006 · Private
Illustration · Dubai
School of Modern Skills has been running in the Muhaisnah district of Dubai since 2006 and teaches an American curriculum from KG1 to grade 12. The base is the Californian Common Core standards for English and mathematics and the NGSS for science, while Arabic, Islamic education and social studies follow the UAE Ministry of Education programme. The school has two campuses and they are separated by sex: one for boys and one for girls, each with a computer room of its own. The senior stage prepares students for an American high school diploma with Advanced Placement courses and preparation for the SAT, IELTS and EmSAT, with a dedicated college counsellor. English is the language of instruction, Arabic is compulsory at every stage, and French is added as a third language from grade 8. The school day is short and starts early: from 7:15, until 12:35 for the kindergarten and 14:25 for the elementary school, and until 11:40 on Fridays; the ENGAGE extended day and the paid ASAP support lessons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays run after lessons.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $4 763–8 052 a year
17 491–29 572 AED
Programmes
AP · American programme
Admits from
4 years · Pre-School
Languages of instruction
English
Languages taught
Arabic, French
Registration fee
≈ $95
350 AED
About the fees The annual fee depends on the stage: 17,491 dirhams for KG1, 18,247 for KG2, 18,876 for grade 1 and upwards by grade to 29,572 dirhams in grades 11 and 12. On top of the fee the school charges uniform (461-793 dirhams) and books and stationery (1,260-4,026 dirhams), and with those the total per grade comes to between 19,212 and 34,391 dirhams. One-off payments at admission are an entrance test at 350 dirhams and a seat reservation fee of 1,500 dirhams. The ASAP support lessons are not included in the fee: ten sessions cost 800 dirhams.
Admissions Admission runs step by step: an application, a test costing 350 dirhams, an entrance exam and an interview with a student support specialist, an offer of a place with a 1,500 dirham seat fee, submission of documents, payment, and finally registration on the KHDA portal with the signing of the parent contract. The grade is set by age on 31 August: KG1 takes four-year-olds (with five as the cut-off), KG2 five-year-olds and grade 1 six-year-olds. The school takes its age requirements from the Ministry of Education and the KHDA. Documents from abroad need attestation by the ministry of education, the ministry of foreign affairs and the UAE embassy of that country.
Stages and year groups Grades KG1 - grade 12. The stages run straight through: KG1-KG2 is the EYDP early years development programme, grades 1-5 the elementary school, grades 6-8 the middle school and grades 9-12 the high school with AP courses. Grade 5 is set apart as a separate Fifth Grade Academy. The school day starts at 7:15: the kindergarten until 12:35, the elementary school until 14:25, and a short day until 11:40 on Fridays. The week runs Monday to Friday, with Saturday and Sunday as the weekend.
Address 27th Street, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Rd, Muhaisnah 1
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · 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
NEASCNew England Association of Schools and Colleges
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 →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.
American programme
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.
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 pool
✓Sports hall
✓Laboratories
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
✓Library
·Cateringnot stated on the website
✓School transport
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: Two separate campuses, one for boys and one for girls. Sport: a football field, two gymnasiums, an outdoor and an indoor basketball court and two swimming pools. Teaching spaces: two computer rooms, one per campus, new chemistry, physics and biology laboratories beside the learning resource centre, two innovation hubs with robotics and artificial intelligence, an art room and activity rooms, and calming spaces. It has its own transport department with buses by district. The canteen is still being built.
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 room
✓Counsellor
·Child protection policynot stated on the website
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
The student support service is stated by its make-up: behaviourists, psychologists, wellbeing counsellors, student guidance advisors, English-as-an-additional-language teachers and special and inclusion support teachers, headed by a director of its own. The middle school has a pastoral care team, daily advisory periods and a peer mentoring programme. The school has a clinic of its own: a pupil's medical file is submitted straight to it, and so is the vaccination card.
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%)75 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 data85 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 "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 8 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