A New French School in Dubai for 2021-2022. All Details Here!

Lycée Libanais Francophone Privé – Meydan has opened its new Meydan campus with 400 new students, a strong showing for a new school in the premium fee category. The school has opened with Pre-K to Grade 5 year groups, but from the next academic year will offer all grades. The school has a total capacity for 1875 students.

A total of 300 of the 400 new students have come from the original school, Lycée Libanais Francophone Privé Al Muhaisnah, which catered to 1,200 mainly Lebanese national students aged three to 18 years in the 2019-2020 academic year. The Al Muhaisnah school was rated Very Good in its 2018-19 KHDA inspection, something the founding principal, Lena Tahan Khalil, who had been with the Muhaisnah school for seven years, will be looking to replicate.

Ms Khalil said: “This project has been years in the making, and we’re delighted that we can offer children an enhanced curriculum with our facilities and resources. We’re very confident that this will raise the bar even higher, and our children will grab the opportunity with both hands. This is a really special project and we’re delighted that we can offer this to our community”.

Fees at the school range from AED 38,000 – AED 66,000, a step up from the original, sister school where fees range from AED 24,622 – AED 52,764. To compensate the newly built school, located on the Al Ain road, says it will offer its students “world-class facilities”.  The campus covers an area of ​​35, 686 sqm arranged in seven buildings “with vast green spaces”, and social areas built into the masterplan. In addition, the campus features two indoor gymnasia, a football field and running track. All classrooms, laboratories and language rooms are equipped with interactive LED screens. The school also has an auditorium that will be used to celebrate “the cultural heritage of the pupils with performances, conferences and film screenings” while a green house will allow students to discover the living world as part of the teachings of the program. Various spaces will allow students to grow vegetables and study ecology and plant science.

Dorsch Gruppe is the architect of the new building, which despite only just being complete has already obtained two laureates for “sustainable and efficient architecture” and as the “Design Education Project of the Year” 2021, both at the Architecture Leaders Awards 2021.

In a release sent to the media the school said it was taking advantage of “strong demand” for the French curriculum in the UAE.

The school will provide the National Curriculum of France through all four cycles covering pre-KG, into KG 1 and 2, and through Grades 1-12, namely: the école maternelle (pre-KG, KG 1-2), école primaire (Grade 1-5), collège (G6-G9) and lycée (G10-12). All students will receive the French National Diploma, and the French General Baccalaureate when they leave the school. Aside the pure academics, the school says it will offer a “stimulating and creative learning environment, conducive to the personal development of their academic, artistic and athletic potential, as a whole.

The official inauguration of the school will happen at the launch of the Expo Dubai. The school will be joined by ambassadors and high ranking officials from the French government, in coordination with the French Cultural Section of the French diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi.