Top Schools Awards 2021. Results Live. Dubai English Speaking College and The British School Al Khubairat Awarded Jointly The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Award for Best Post-16 Education in the UAE 2021-22.

The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Awards 2021-22 Award for Best Post-16 Education in the United Arab Emirates is awarded jointly to:

Dubai English Speaking College

The British School Al Khubairat

This is one of the most important awards of all. It is a time in a child’s education that futures are made. In the most outstanding schools two fundamental things need to be achieved before anything else:

(1) Students need a choice of subjects that meet their very individual needs, ambitions, gifts and potential; and

(2)  There needs to be a promise that no child will ever be left behind.

Translated, a school needs to be able to meet the needs of every child with exceptional subject breadth and learning opportunities – and ensure that every child excels.

There are two further elements every bit as important – because without them, a school will not achieve for children:

(3) The school must be populated with outstanding teachers and educationalists

(4) The school must provide an atmosphere in which learning becomes a passion for students, is something that is never less than inspirational.

These are deeply conjoined.

And it is in these four areas that both Dubai English Speaking College and The British School Al Khubairat left us in an impossible position of having to choose between two schools that set the benchmark for secondary education in the UAE. And we couldn’t.

There is not time here to explore the wonders of both schools. Both of them were considered in almost every relevant category of the awards – and could quite easily, with a slightly different lens, have won any number of them.

A few points on each.

The British School Al Khubairat is led by one of the most inspirational, principled, and humane Principals we have been fortunate enough to meet in the UAE. Mr Leppard’s commitment to leaving no child behind takes your breath away. And this commitment absolutely sparkles throughout his school. You do not forget meeting him.

Mark Leppard MBE, Headmaster of The British School Al Khubairat – one of the finest school leaders and educationalists in the UAE.

In terms of delivery, there is not an area of the curriculum that does not shine in its ambition or achievement for children. This is a school that delivers a BTEC in Engineering, unheard of in the UAE, has a commitment to empowering young women in the Sciences that enthralls, has an Art Department whose regular exhibitions makes you feel you are visiting a London art Gallery – and a school atmosphere alive with purpose, inclusiveness, compassion, wonder and achievement. The British school Al Khubairat is beyond question one of the finest schools in the region – and many would argue its finest.

Provision for Post-16 students at The British school Al Khubairat is beyond any reasonable critique and, simply stated, magnificent.

Where to begin with Dubai English Speaking College? This is a school that swept the board at the 2019-20 Top Schools Awards. There is much competition between the region’s finest schools – but not a single one questioned our decision or the justice in its winning so many accolades. It is a school that goes from strength to strength. Like The British School Al Khubairat, it is a sublimely inclusive school. It is also one that is unflinching in its commitment to leaving no child behind – so much so that it effectively built an entire department around a single child to ensure his future. This simply does not happen – except in the most extraordinary schools where conviction, integrity and promises mean something – and whatever their cost. This is a school where breadth of subject provision is matched by its depth – and the whole child curriculum blends seamlessly with its academic curriculum to the point that they are as one. And do not even begin to question the extraordinary achievements of the school in Sport…

Both schools help young men and women find their futures in the world ahead of them – and with all the layers of complexity and depth that parents aspire to for their children. Do not expect from either DESC or BSAK children with either conceit or arrogance – students at both schools have that depth that comes from an education that transcends the need for either. Secondary education, at both schools, is never less than a tour de force.

There simply could be no more deserving winners of the SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Award for Best Post-16 Education in the UAE 2021-22. That both schools should win this Award says so much about each of them. And the decision for this Award was unanimous.

We shall be updating our reviews of both schools to reflect our findings of the schools in the coming months. Watch this space.

© SchoolsCompared.com. 2021. All rights reserved.

Visit the official Dubai English Speaking College web site here.

Visit the official The British School Al Khubairat web site here.

Read the independent review of Dubai English Speaking College by SchoolsCompared.com here.

Read the independent review of Dubai English Speaking College by WhichSchoolAdvisor here.

Read the independent review of The British School Al Khubairat by SchoolsCompared.com here.

Read the independent review of The British School Al Khubairat by WhichSchoolAdvisor here.