Dubai, UAE · PrivateSunmarke School is a large British school in Jumeirah Village Triangle in Dubai, behind the Limitless building off Al Khail Road, and its stages run right through: from FS1 at the age of three to Year 13 at eighteen. More than ninety nationalities are represented, the largest share of them British. What sets the school apart is the choice at the end: it offers both the British route, GCSE with A Levels and BTEC, and the IB Diploma, so a leaver chooses a system rather than a school. Its campus is richly equipped: STEAM and AI labs, an IB Centre and nine science laboratories, five design technology labs, three libraries with their own media centres, a 400-seat auditorium, four music labs and three fine arts studios, a black box theatre, TV and radio production studios, a FIFA-standard football pitch, an Olympic-level indoor sports hall, a Zen garden for mindfulness and a Forest School. The school day is a long one: the Foundation Stage runs Monday to Thursday from 7:40 to 13:15 and the rest until 15:10, while on Friday everyone finishes by 11:30. The canteen is open from seven in the morning until 15:30, lunch costs 24.25 dirhams, the kitchen is nut-free and gluten-free and dairy-free options are available. The school does not run the buses itself - they are operated by an outside company, My Bus Transport Services LLC. Learning support sits in the school's Achievement Centre, and it has a SENCO.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
BSO · accreditationIB · MYP, DP · authorised programmeBSME · part of the associationWhat stands behind each entry
A scheme of the UK Department for Education: a school abroad is inspected against the standards for independent schools in England, including safeguarding and the standards for boarding. The inspections are done by independent inspectorates approved by the department, and the inspectorates themselves are monitored annually by Ofsted. The reports are published in full on the government website.
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 →A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
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 →Programmes of the University of Cambridge: the school teaches to Cambridge syllabuses and enters its pupils for exams that Cambridge marks itself. 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.
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.