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Choosing the Best School for Your Child. School Leaders Reveal All. TV Special. JESS, Kent, Repton.
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Choosing the Best School for Your Child. School Leaders Reveal All. TV Special. JESS, Kent, Repton.

by Jon WestleySeptember 24, 2020

Background: How to Choose the Best School for Your Child. Part 7. 

Choosing the Best School School Leadership

In the seventh of our major new series of video interviews with school leaders drawn from across the UAE, exclusively from SchoolsCompared.comTVTM , we get to the bottom of the questions you should be asking schools to separate the wheat from the chaff. The single lesson? The best school for your child will be a different school for another – and asking the right questions is the only bullet proof way to ensure your children get the best possible education.

In the special TV Series we are building the definitive picture – from those who are running our schools – of all the questions parents should be asking – and the answers you should be looking for to ensure you make the right decision. Together with top tips and insider secrets from those in a position to know best, we aim to provide parents with the definitive guide to choosing the right schools in the UAE – for their child.

As more and more parents are now seeking to move schools, we have aimed to get the information that will help these parents, as well as those arriving in the UAE and seeking a school for the first time.

We have, and are, releasing these guides in blocks of three video interviews. By the end of the series we will have covered the broadest possible range of school types, from premium Tier Ones to value schools – and across multiple curricular and specialisms.

Fasten your seat belts…

In this Guide we speak with three giants of UAE education:

  • JESS Dubai – Jumeirah. The Ivy League not-for-profit, KHDA outstanding Primary slipstream school to JESS Dubai – Arabian Ranches.
  • Repton School Dubai. The Dubai based, KHDA Outstanding, namesake of its British founder school with a formidable reputation for delivering at the very highest level for its students.
  • Kent Collage Dubai. Another Dubai based namesake of a much-loved British school that has established a Tier One reputation for providing its students with an outstanding, whole-child focused British education.

 

The Questions we Asked …

We asked schools the following questions:

  • Can you describe your role and the leadership experience you bring to advising parents?
  • What are the top 3 questions parents should ask schools when they visit?
  • What are good answers  to these questions?
  • What really matters when parents are looking for the right school for their child?
  • What is the single most important piece of advice you can give parents when deciding on the best schools for their children?

None of the school leaders we interviewed were made aware of how other school leaders answered these questions.

 

Top Schools in the UAE – School Leaders Reveal All. Part 7.

Choosing the Best Schools sign warning visitors that filiming is in progress during our interviews with the top leaders in education and schools across the UAE

In Part 7 of this Guide, we ask another three school leaders to guide parents and reveal all about how they can interrogate schools to find out just how well each will really meet the needs, and deliver on the full potential, of their children.

Interview 19. Asa Firth. Head Teacher. Jumeirah English Speaking School. JESS Dubai – Jumeirah. 

https://youtu.be/aNcHXIlBXgE

Asa Firth is the longest-standing leader at the Ivy-League not-for-profit Jumeirah English Speaking School, affectionately shortened to JESS Dubai. Mr Firth has been instrumental in the development of JESS Jumeirah, the outstanding Primary slipstream school for JESS Dubai in Arabian Ranches, for more than a decade – and has led the school as Head Teacher for over five of those years. In total, Mr Firth brings more than 20 years of experience to his role at JESS, and counts his core expertise as stretching from strategic planning and mentoring to educational technology and conference speaking. His passion for JESS and its children is well known; as Mr Firth says “Exceptional people demand exceptional surroundings and this leads to exceptional results. Here at JESS Jumeirah we have all three.”

Our independent review of the Jumeirah English Speaking School, JESS Dubai – Jumeirah, can be found here.

The official Jumeirah English Speaking School, JESS Dubai – Jumeirah, can be found here.

Interview 20. David Cook. Headmaster. Repton School Dubai.

https://youtu.be/TFUf_Bwinh8

David Cook is the Headmaster of Repton School Dubai, the Inclusion and Safeguarding Governor of Repton School Abu Dhabi, and the Senior Academic Advisor to the CEO of Repton Schools International. He earned a BA (Hons) in History and an MA in Victorian Literature and History from Birkbeck College at the University of London, before beginning his teaching career at Caterham School in London. In 2001, he was appointed Deputy Headmaster of Queen Elizabeth Hospital School in Bristol. Four years later, he became the Headmaster of Merchant Taylors’ School in Liverpool — one of the leading schools in the north of England. Mr. Cook was Chairman of HMC North West from 2013 to 2015, and on the national steering committee for staff professional development. In addition, he served as the Governor of another leading HMC school.Mr. Cook was educated at the Royal Hospital School in Suffolk. After graduation, he joined the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst before spending five years in the Cheshire Regiment as an Infantry Officer. He is an outspoken evangelist for genuine inclusion in schools, the importance of value-add and meeting the responsibility, in full, of contextualising an outstanding world class British education at Repton within the bigger picture provided by Repton’s home in Dubai and the Arab world.

Our independent review of Repton School Dubai can be found here.

The official Repton School Dubai web site can be found here.

Interview 21. Anthony Cashin. Principal. Kent College Dubai.

https://youtu.be/i3i9lApfB9U

Anthony Cashin has been a pioneering global educationalist for more than thirty years. Mr Cashin has made his home in the UAE for fifteen years with a pedigree that stretches back locally through leadership positions at GEMS and as the Foundation Director of Ajman Academy, a post he held for five years, prior to taking up the helm at Kent College Dubai. Mr Cashin brings to Kent a genuinely extraordinary breadth of experience ranging from his pioneering role as Principal at the Sultan’s School in Muscat to being a Lecturer in English Language for the Japan Coastguard in Hiroshima. Mr Cashin holds an MBA from IQUniversity and is, tellingly, an educationalist by profession – having studied for both his Diploma and Graduate Diploma in Education. Genuine, caring, brimming with integrity and a formidable evangelist for transparency in education, Mr Cashin made waves at Kent on his appointment by taking his Principal’s door off its hinges and announcing “I want it open for my students, teachers and parents.”

Our independent review of Kent College Dubai can be found here.

The official Kent College Dubai School web site can be found here.

©SchoolsCompared.com 2020. All rights reserved.

To read Part One of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

To read Part Two of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

To read Part Three of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

To read Part Four of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

To read Part Five of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

To read Part Six of this Guide to Choosing the Best Schools in the UAE, click here.

About The Author
Jon Westley
Jon Westley is the Editor of SchoolsCompared.com and WhichSchoolAdvisor.com UK. You can email him at jonathanwestley [at] schoolscompared.com

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