The Best International Baccalaureate Curriculum School in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 Revealed. Top Schools Award Winner. Official.
The Winner
The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Awards for
The Best International Baccalaureate Curriculum School in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024
is awarded to:
Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills
Our view of Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/dubai-international-academy-emirates-hills
You cannot understand an Innoventures Education School without appreciating the extraordinary impact of its founder Poonam Bhojani. From her, every Innoventures Education School, regardless of its curriculum, gets an investment in leaders and faculty that is never less than inspirational. DIA Emirates Hills is no exception, and teaching and leadership here are second-to-none. There is an understanding here that the quality of teachers matters more than a million baubles or 50M pools. Despite perceptions of many parents, particularly given the exactness of the IB structure, all IB schools are not the same and DIA Emirates Hills sets the IB alight with the passion of its delivery by teachers, and the deep commitment of the whole school to the happiness and welfare of children.
Both so matter, particularly in the stretch of the Diploma. But the wider impact of this extraordinary investment in children and young people is the understanding here that creativity and innovation, the absolute core of what the IB is seeking to achieve, depend on children having the freedom, confidence, security and happiness to think and construct the world without needing to worry about anything. Care for children runs very deep. The longest established IB continuum school in the Emirates then builds on this with a whole child programme so big you simply run out of space to count the number of opportunities available to each child. This is a school that believes in the IB without qualification in its ambitions to give every child the ability to be so much more than the sum of academic results. DIA students are risk takers, explorers and innovators, just as they are caring, principled and outward-looking. Here the focus is on a world bigger than the sum of its parts and one much bigger than the solitary child. A community has been created here, one brimming with, inclusion, child happiness and achievement – both academic and whole child. It’s something to behold.
Pretty much across the board Outstanding for regulators, this is no small achievement in a school delivering the International Baccalaureate – and inclusively. The IB is complex, and demanding. There is so much that is outstanding too in both DIA schools, including its Al Barsha younger sibling. There is a mistaken belief that that the depth and intensity of delivering the IB means that all IB schools are the same; that somehow the template issued by the IB, means that it is hard to not be Outstanding. There is, to some degree an element of truth in this – the IB stretched every sinew of a child’s capacity to learn – and stretches children across both a breadth of disciplines no other curricular can match – and provides each child the ethical underpinnings of an education that other curricular have to plug into. There are few ways to innovate in the basic template which must be rigorously followed. However, that is why the achievements here are so deserving of praise, because DIA Emirates innovates and pushed at an already beyond-stretching framework, and does so to enable all children to achieve in ways that breaks the rulebook that says entrance to the IB must be academically selective. It helps that so many children in the UAE have linguistic advantage, but this does not explain the scale of achievement here over other schools.
Historically remember this was the Innoventures Education school that helped define the landscape of the IB in the emirates. DIA Emirates Hills was the first IB World School authorised by the International Baccalaureate Organisation in the UAE to offer the full range of IB programmes. It was also the first IB curriculum school in the UAE to achieve an Outstanding rating from the KHDA (which it received in 2015-16). Today it is the only full IB to hold the ranking of Outstanding. Principal and Head of School Hitesh Bhagat has so much to be proud of.
Accounting for its success, there are so many pieces to this outstanding jigsaw. Investment in high calibre teachers is probably the most important factor, but equally, each teacher has a relatively small number of students to nurture with a teacher:student ratio of just 1:11. The school is intensely focused on communication, evidenced in the engagement of students in MUN, debating and breaking down the walls that separate it from the community and world outside it. Students here are inspired to think and have positions.
In 2022, the cohort of 153 IBDP students achieved an average of 37.1 points, 96% of DIA Emirates Hills students met or exceeded the 30 points world average, and 33.1% of students achieved 40 points or more. 2.6% of the cohort achieved a Bilingual Diploma. Five students achieved the full 45 points in the IB Diploma, this achieved by around only 200 students each year worldwide. In 2023, 99.3% of students achieved a pass in the Diploma, with i95% of students achieving above 30 points, 60% above 35 points and more than 20% of students above 40 points. Our story can be found here: https://schoolscompared.com/news/ib-results-2023-dia-emirates-hills-smashes-global-average-with-more-than-20-of-students-scoring-40-or-above/
This is also a school that has embraced the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme, with 85% of students achieving triple distinctions. This matters, and weighed our decision making in this Category, because some of our most outstandingly talented children are so technically. Any school that does not provide a technical stream pathways is making one of two statements – either it believes that technical stream pathways are second-rate, or it believes that academically able children should not be given the opportunity to study technical subjects (and have their education restricted). With very few exceptions, we see such arguments as ludicrous, and damaging to the life chances of children.
The history of leadership here is stellar. Hitesh Bhagat has sustained and improved the powerhouse IB education in Innoventures Education’s flagship school, one built on the strong foundations established by Ian Thurston (Ex JESS), who is now transforming its Al Barsha sister. Both are conviction educationalists.
Chief Executive Officer of Innoventures Education, Mrs Poonam Bhojani, as above, is a force of nature, driving all of her schools to meet exceptionally demanding targets for child achievement – and, crucially, happiness.
Inclusion, the spectrum of academic pathways, investment in teachers and leadership, outstanding results that evidence no child being left behind, and an uncompromising commitment to child well-being – everything is in place here to justify Dubai International Academy being recognised at the top of the top table of those International Baccalaureate schools most powerfully delivering for children and families in the UAE today.
Award Presentation
Best-IB-Curriculum-School-Dubai-Int-Academy-Winner-Certificate-portraitThe Top Schools Award for Best International Baccalaureate School in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 will be presented to Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills at a special Breakfast Celebration at The Emirates Golf Club on the morning of 16th November 2023. At the event the recipient of The Top Schools Awards 2023 – 2024 for Outstanding Contribution to Education will be revealed.
Historic winners of the Outstanding Contribution to Education in the UAE Award include H.E. Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Director General of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, recognised for his era defining leadership of Education in Dubai as a force for good; and the Varkey Family, for their instrumental role in shaping education in the UAE, and ensuring the life chances for generations of children, following the founding of GEMS Education in 1959.
Our Finalists.
Our extraordinary Finalists and those schools which have achieved outstandingly in so many ways for children in the Best International Baccalaureate Curriculum School category follow. Each of the following schools are recognised for their profound contribution to IB education in the UAE.
GEMS International School Al Khail
Web: https://www.gemsinternationalschool-alkhail.com/en
KHDA: Good with Very Good and Outstanding Features
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/gems-international-school-al-khail
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/gems-international-school-al-khail-dubai-hills-review/
Our view of GEMS International School Al Khail:
“GEMS International School Al Khail is a truly pioneering IB School, one that has won accolades for the richness of its aeronautical, aviation and STEAM pathways, qualification pathways you simply cannot find anywhere else in an alternative UAE school.
“For aspiring young pilots, aviation engineers and astronauts this is as close as it gets to perfect in a school as you’ll find.
“As with all our finalist schools, the calibre of leadership, in the shape of the absolutely amazing Simon Herbert, and teaching faculty here is beyond-outstanding and found a school that fires on every cylinder – and more – for all children. And that is the real key here; all children – this is a deeply humane and inclusive school that welcomes children of every talent – and meets those talents with some of the most innovative, inspirational and meaningful pathways we have seen in any UAE school.
“The ambition for children is boundless, this reflected in this being the only GEMS IB School with four pathways to ensure than no child is left behind – and every child succeeds. We have always rated the IB Career-related Programme very, very highly – and there are strong arguments that it represents the future of education. Here that programme is delivered with a breadth of subject options that takes the breath away. The headline is of course the four Embry Riddel Aeronautical Programmes, but you’ll also find Business, (phenomenally good) Creative Media and Sport options. This is before you even get to the Diploma, delivered here with all the richness of academic study and breadth of options you won’t better in other IB schools.
“Add a monumental commitment to, and investment in, wellbeing and child happiness, an ethics of humanity that shows itself across every corner of school life, beyond outstanding school leadership, and outstanding whole child provision, and this is a school that stands apart.
“Many say this is the GEMS IB school, and it’s easy to see why. GEMS has thrown everything at this school to build a giant in inclusive IB education and the result is no less than a tour de force.”
Greenfield International School
Web: https://gischool.ae
KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/greenfield-international-school
Our view of Greenfield International School:
“You cannot think about the IB in Dubai without a nod to the school that has played such a pivotal and historic role in establishing the IB, and an IB continuum education, in the Emirates. We have always credited the school with its particular role in establishing the value of the Career-related Programme with regulators, parents and students alike. For us, the IB Career-related Programme is the crown jewels of IB qualifications, combing all the best of the IB whole child programmes with the ability to specialise in a depth of technical area study that you associate much more commonly with British alternative A levels. It’s also the only IB programme that does not discriminate against those who are not natural linguists.
“Established in 2007, Greenfield has had the time to understand, live and breathe the IB – and its breadth of qualification pathways ensures that it meets the needs, potential and aspirations of every child. It may have lost community in its title, presumably because of Taaleem’s push to professionalise its school naming, but this remains a community school, albeit one with extraordinary levels of investment by Taaleem to match the status of its flagship IB school.
“Those community dynamics deliver a warmth and commitment to the individual child that adds a softness to IB delivery that too easily falls victims to the hothouse. As a Taaleem school, this is an inclusive one with rigorous commitment to child welfare and wellbeing – but it is also one that pushes hard on achievement and results.”
Raha International School Gardens Campus, Abu Dhabi
Web: https://www.ris.ae
KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/raha-international-school/
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/raha-international-school-gardens-abu-dhabi https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/raha-international-school/
Our view of Raha International School Gardens Campus:
“RIS Gardens is one of only two IB Continuum World School in the capital, and arguably Taaleem’s flagship IB school. It’s also one with new and significant investment in its sister school, only minutes, away, to manage quite extraordinary demand for places.
“Until last year, the school benefitted from the enduring leadership of the hugely respect Iain Colledge, widely credited with shaping the outstanding school RIS Garden undoubtedly is today.
“If there is a gap it’s in the lack of the Careers-related Programme, this in no small part due to later acceptance of technical education by regulators in Abu Dhabi. With technical education now given equivalent weight by regulators we think that Taaleem should be putting this right. After all, it played an historic role in delivering the Careers-related Programme in Dubai.
“Beyond this, this is an extraordinarily well resourced, beautiful school. Students want for nothing. Investment in teachers is significant and this feels exactly like an IB school should – an oasis of creativity, hope, inspiration and innovation, driven by students who are given the support to question everything and find solutions.
“In a world that could sorely do with some meaningful answers, the quality of IB education showcased here gives all its students the tools to provide them. Results too are outstanding for an inclusive IB school.”
Swiss International Scientific School Dubai
Web: https://sisd.ae
KHDA: Good with Very Good and Outstanding Features
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/swiss-international-scientific-school-dubai
Our view of The Swiss International Scientific School Dubai:
“One of the most ambitious school launches in the UAE for a decade, the aspiration to deliver a cutting edge, Tier 1 premium, Swiss education in the heart of the UAE, one that would compete with the best of Swiss Schools (the most expensive in the world) on their own terms, was, for many, mind boggling. When the plans were announced, it’s fair to say there were plenty of detractors, not because of the ambition, but simply because the belief was that the ambition would never be met. However, it’s fair to say that from Day One the critics were pretty much silenced – the investment in this school to make sure it delivers is almost unmatched. Everything is here to deliver a world class IB education. Add an exceptionally strong boarding offer, attracting children from across the emirates, and this is a school that is mapping its own destiny without any easy comparisons.
“For us, the school became an outstanding one when it introduced the Career-programme and developed its expertise in Hospitality in a very clever move to build links between a key Swiss industry and the UAE. In turn, a school operating in a richly inclusive culture of education became one able to meet in full the needs of all its students. A second option in business will hopefully meet a third, and then fourth…, technical stream options in the years to come.
“The impacts of ever-growing commitment to child welfare and happiness is showing dividends – today SISSD is a very different school to the one that opened – warmth abounds, and creativity and innovation flourishes. It’s inevitable perhaps with all schools, as a culture develops and there is less worry about adhering rigidly to structures, generally to avoid the risk of error, that schools find their true voice. That voice today has surrounded its children with extraordinary levels of investment, world class teachers, a huge level of ambition, and a commitment to care that now spreads to its qualification and subject pathways.
“SISSD today stands alone in its own unique space, building an IB powerhouse school with no small amount of courage and very few manuals. That alone makes it stand out and deserve to be supported. In a way this is a twist on IB schooling that, in its inherent innovation in landing here in the UAE, celebrates the IB by simply existing. That it does so today with very significant ongoing investment, innovation and care for its students makes this a school that may well have an impact in the years to come way beyond the walls of its buildings.”
A final note.
The Top Schools Awards takes over a year to produce. It engages with parents, students educators and educationalists over countless months, and the work invested in these Awards is the stuff of sleepless nights and deeply felt responsibility. We produce these Awards to celebrate our amazing schools, our magnificent teachers – who are the centre of the universe, our school leaders, whose lives will be judged by their impact on children, and the amazing students that they build a future for. These Awards are only about recognising this – in a world in which our schools and educators have far, far too little recognition. If on exploring these Awards you do one single thing, it should be to reach out to each and every one and thank them for all they do, each and every one of our schools, teachers and school leaders. You have absolutely no idea how much that would mean.
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