Star International School, Mirdif
Dubai, UAE · est. 2008 · PrivateStar International School, Mirdif opened in 2008 on 24 B Street in Mirdif, next to the Abaya shopping mall, and belongs to the International Schools Partnership group. The curriculum is the English national one with a strong emphasis on STEAM, pupils are taken from three to eighteen, and there are more than eighty nationalities. The school makes language its headline feature: it promises fluency in English and Arabic to everyone, French runs as an additional language, and for those whose English falls short there is an immersive English as an Additional Language programme; Arabic and English start together in the Early Years. The senior stage offers three routes - A Levels, BTECs or a mixture - and the subject set is chosen for each pupil according to their goals and university entry requirements. The campus is a sporting one and is about to expand: a large sports hall with a movable curtain that divides it into two spaces, a full-size outdoor astro football pitch of professional grade, an outdoor multi-court for volleyball, an indoor temperature-controlled swimming pool with spectator seating, and laboratories and studios. There are many and varied extracurricular activities: Arabic calligraphy and the Arabic Reading Challenge, art and craft, badminton and basketball, Becoming an Author, board games, a book club, British Sign Language, chess, coding, cross stitch and the Crest Award. The school also keeps pages on kindness and inclusivity and on leadership opportunities for pupils.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · A-Level · authorised programmeBSME · part of the associationInternational Schools Partnership · 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: A-Level (ages 16-18). 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 →One hundred and eighty schools in ten countries - Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; more than half of the membership is in the UAE. It runs no inspections of its own at all. Instead it requires somebody else's accreditation, and the requirement is strict: a school not already accredited on joining must gain accreditation within two years and then maintain it. The inspectorates are EDT or ISI, which means the accreditation in question is the British government's BSO scheme. The organisation has withdrawn its former lighter routes in - one route remains.
What the badge means for this school. The school belongs to the association, and the association requires its members to hold a real accreditation: for Gulf schools that is almost always BSO. What to look at is that accreditation rather than this badge. Nor is the badge empty - there is no inspection of its own behind it, but a school is not admitted to the association without somebody else's accreditation. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →A British vocational qualification from Pearson: not an academic course with an exam at the end, but a programme of practical assignments in a particular trade, from engineering and business to art and sport.
What this means for this school. Teaching and assessment work differently from A-level: instead of written exams there is a run of practical assignments marked by the school, while Pearson checks the school itself and samples the work. British universities do accept BTEC, but not all of them and not for every course: level 3 carries the same UCAS points as A-level, and that is what a family aiming at a particular university should look at. For a child who needs the classic academic route, BTEC is not a replacement for A-level but a different path.
A group of private international schools, founded in 2013 by five leaders from international education. The numbers diverge: the home page gives 121 schools in 26 countries and "132,000+" pupils, the "About us" page - 106 schools in 25 countries, the "Who and where we are" page - 121 schools in more than 26 markets and 118,000 pupils. The site writes that schools keep their own character, brand and curriculum when they join ISP, but does not say whether ISP buys the schools, manages them under contract or brings them together by membership.
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.