The WellSpring Private School
Ras Al Khaimah, UAE · est. 2015 · PrivateThe WellSpring Private School is an American school in Ras Al Khaimah, on 34th Street in the Dafan Al Khor district, and part of the LifePlus network, which runs schools in China and the UAE as well as an online academy. Its history is short and easy to follow: the school opened in 2015 in a small rented space inside RAK Academy with room for 175 students, and at that point ran only a kindergarten and an elementary school; it added classrooms on the same plot in 2017 and 2018, then needed a second campus for the older grades, and by the end of the 2020-2021 school year it had gathered on one campus with enough space for everyone from Pre-K to grade 12. The curriculum is American, with Advanced Placement courses. The average class has 18 students; the school counts 48 student nationalities and 19 staff nationalities, puts its average SAT score at 1,167 and the number of universities its graduates go on to at 27. Accreditation is from Cognia, and the school specifies that it is with distinction. Tuition covers the programme itself and classroom learning materials, the library and the medical service, counselling and learning support; textbooks are billed separately. The school has its own wellbeing service - a team of counsellors, support specialists and a medical clinic on site - and its programme for people of determination was one of the first in Ras Al Khaimah; for students who need a life-skills class or a shadow teacher, the cost is charged separately. The day runs Monday to Thursday from 7:30 to 15:30, and on Friday from 7:30 to 12:00. From grade 6 to grade 12 students bring their own laptops, and the school installs the software they need on them.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeLifePlus · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
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 →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.
LifePlus (on its own site lifeplusworldwide.com, «LifePlus®») is a small international school network with a US registered address, «15 Perry Street, Suite 103, Newnan, Georgia 30263, USA». The list on its Schools page gives six physical sites and one online: The WellSpring Private School in Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, Chengdu International School, International School of Qingdao, Tianjin International School, Wuhan Yangtze International School and Yantai Huasheng International School in China, plus LifePlus Online Academy; the homepage describes the same Chinese part as «Five international schools». On accreditation the network uses one phrase for all its schools - they are accredited «with distinction by Cognia». The site gives no founding year, no student numbers and no wording about ownership, management or franchise; how many pupils the network has it never says.
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.