Wesgreen International School - Sharjah
Sharjah, UAE · est. 1991 · PrivateWesgreen International School - Sharjah has run since 1991 in the Muwailah Commercial district and belongs to GEMS. The school is divided into four parts: early years from FS1 to Year 1, the primary school in Years 2 to 6, the secondary school in Years 7 to 13 with separate boys' and girls' sections, and the administration. The curriculum blends the British EYFS, the National Curriculum for England and the Cambridge programmes, and from Year 7 the school moves wholly onto the Cambridge path: Cambridge Secondary 1 in Years 7 to 9 as preparation for the IGCSE, the two-year IGCSE programme in Years 10 and 11 with nineteen subjects to choose from - and in mathematics, English and the sciences the school is following the Pearson Edexcel version this year - and then AS and A level. The teaching staff come from more than thirty-seven countries. The school has four campuses, each with its own clinic: two full-time doctors and two nurses for the school as a whole, with a separate counselling service. Of its teaching facilities the school names four modern computer rooms with internet access, fully equipped physics, chemistry and biology laboratories, libraries and e-libraries, multimedia halls and art rooms; there is a pool of its own and a canteen run by a contractor. Sport and the extracurricular side are unexpectedly broad for an Emirati school: football and swimming teams at under-10, 12, 14 and 16, gymnastics for boys and girls, an athletics club, and beyond them scuba diving, equestrian sport and a forest-and-farm programme. Clubs start in the second week of term and end at 15:30, the 'little leagues' at 16:00; some clubs are paid for. Secondary clubs are run by the pupils themselves: senior pupils own the club, lead the sessions and organise events for their peers, and the school says plainly that this looks good on a university application; the journalism club and the drama club are named. Beyond the clubs there is the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, Model United Nations and a student business leadership forum. Tuition runs from 23,545 dirhams a year in FS1 to 52,180 in the final year.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cambridge · Lower Secondary, IGCSE, A-Level · authorised programmeBSO · accreditationBSME · part of the associationGEMS · 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: Lower Secondary (ages 11-14), IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). Lower Secondary is the middle stage, ages 11 to 14, with the same optional Checkpoint test at the end. 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.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 →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 →GEMS Education is a private school group that describes itself on its own site as one of the oldest and largest K-12 (to Grade 12 / Year 13) private education providers in the world. The site dates its start to 1959 («Our story began in 1959«, «65+ Years of Legacy«), while another page on the same site says «over 60 Years of Legacy«. School counts on the site disagree: the homepage says both «52 schools across the UAE, Qatar and Egypt« and «Choose from our list of over 47 schools«, while the Our Company page says GEMS has schools «in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Europe and North America«. Students: «200,000 students from over 176 countries« (Our Company) and «over 200,000« (homepage). On ownership the site is explicit: «GEMS Education own, operate and manage schools globally« — it both owns and manages, but does not say which schools fall into which category.
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.