Schools Report UAE: What made the news for schools, parents and students in education this week?
The Schools Report brings you the SchoolsCompared.com official Weekly Briefing on the Hottest News in Education.
Every Friday we bring you the latest stories in education in the UAE and around the world in the last 7 days. Here’s what’s been happening this week…
This Week in Education. UAE Education News. First. Every Friday. Only from SchoolsCompared.com.
First (premium) British Curriculum on-line school launches in UAE with immediate availability of places for UAE families at Minerva for students to study to GCSE. Sixth Form A Level study to begin from September. Promise to cut school fees by around half.
Lawrence Tubb, Headmaster of Minerva’s Virtual Academy (pictured right) and former Head of Music at the leading UK independent Wycombe Abbey [“the best all-girl boarding school school in the UK for exam results”], has announced the opening of the high profile London-based online school in the UAE. Minerva’s Virtual Academy is the first to offer a British curriculum home schooling option for UAE parents.
The school is accepting applications for children to join the school aged 12 years and above. Fees at The Academy, set at AED 32,300 for the full three-term academic year, are half those of many of its premium Tier 1 bricks and mortar competitors here in the UAE. The school promises a complete, premium, Tier 1 British education, academic and whole child, to match or better that available at bricks and mortar schools – whilst removing the waste of time and stresses of commutes and giving students a significantly more personalised British education.
Read more: SchoolsCompared First Looks review of Minerva’s Virtual Academy
Back to School: Last-minute switch to online learning for some Dubai schools
This week’s news has been dominated by the chaos wreaked in schools by the new Omicron variant. As the highly infectious virus strain prompts a stark spike in COVID cases in the UAE and the world, many UAE schools found themselves unable to open their institutions safely on what should have been the first day in school after the Winter Break, due to a lack of staff. Instead, online learning was introduced for many schools that had been planning to open face-to-face, often with less than 24 or even 12 hours of notice.
Victory Heights Primary School, Kent College Dubai and DESSC were the first to announce that they would not be physically open for the first day of Term 2, but instead move to online learning.
The majority of GEMS Education schools (believed to be up to 26 of its 28 schools) also remained closed to in-school learning this week, alongside Smart Vision School and Horizon English School.
The first day of the 2022 school term was already delayed from 2 to 3 January, due to the UAE weekend change and the shift from Sunday to Monday as the first day of the working week.
UAE weekend change: Students and teachers excited for UAE’s first shorter working week
This Monday January 3 marked the historic start of a shorter 4.5-day school week – Monday to Friday, which will be a half-day – and school children resumed classes with a new sense of excitement, according to Gulf News.
Although many schools across the emirates have recommenced online rather than in-person, this did not curbe pupils’ enthusiasm.
Darshit Shah, a Grade 10 student at Global Indian International School in Dubai, said he was happy to be back in the classroom. “[As we switch to a new week, I have to say that] it was a great decision to switch to Monday-Friday week. I can communicate my friends who are outside UAE and have holidays on Sundays, which was not the case [earlier]. We also we get a little more free time [at the end of the week]. Now, I am looking forward to working towards my Term 2 board exams, and to having a lot of fun with my classmates.”
Sharjah students have even more free time to look forward to, with the emirate adopting a four-day school week (Monday-Thursday), in keeping with the emirate’s new weekly model of work.
Jonathan Dey, principal at Wesgreen International School Sharjah, said: “As school leaders and teachers, we always look forward to seeing our students back after a big holiday. This term is another change to the norm for parents and schools. We look forward to the internationally innovative approach to family wellbeing, with the four-day working week in Sharjah.:
He added: “The students will be undertaking a more extended day from Monday to Thursday to ensure no learning is lost. We are looking at this as a positive opportunity for personal development. We will be encouraging our families to use this extra day to take up a new sport, consider some community or charity work – as well as some time for family and study. The same goes for our staff.”
Read more: UAE students, teachers excited as shorter school week begins | Education – Gulf News
Principal: “Don’t blame Dubai teachers who travelled for switch to e-learning”
Teachers should not be blamed for school closures linked to Covid-19 infections, according to the principal of Victory Heights Primary School, Sasha Crabb.
The principal of the school that won the SchoolsCompared.com’s Top Schools Award for ‘Best UAE Primary School’ spoke out after reading criticism from some parents, explaining that the surge in infections was not solely linked to teaching staff.
“I read some of the social media posts from parents saying teachers should have been more responsible, teachers should have stayed in Dubai over the Winter Break,” Crabb told The National.
“But there were a lot of last-minute PCR tests coming in, not just from people that have travelled but also from people that remained in the UAE who had difficulty getting test results back.”
COVID case numbers have risen sharply across the UAE in recent weeks, from below 50 in early December to 2,600 on Sunday, fuelled by the infectious Omicron variant.
School teachers and even some school principals have been forced to conduct classes and run their institutions from home – sometimes while based abroad – due to either contracting COVID-19 themselves and being unable to fly back to Dubai, or because they contracted the virus or became a close contact of someone who contracted the virus in the UAE.
Some teaching staff who are stuck overseas have been required to take part in online meetings happening in the middle of the night local time, due to the time difference between the country they are stuck in and the UAE.
Victory Heights Primary School became one of the 30 or more Dubai schools that were forced to shift to online learning due the high rate of infections when schools reopened on 3 January 2022.
“It’s regrettable, hugely regrettable, but we had to do it because once we looked at the number of teachers and operations staff [with the virus], it was not going to be manageable for us to start term two with face-to-face learning,” said Crabb.
Abu Dhabi parents to use remote learning period to vaccinate children
Private school parents in Abu Dhabi have said they will use the current remote learning period to vaccinate their children against Covid-19 to boost their immune systems and protect their health before returning to school campuses for physical learning.
All Abu Dhabi schools resumed the second term with remote learning from Monday, January 3. The online classes are expected to continue for two weeks following an earlier announcement by the Abu Dhabi Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee as a “precautionary measure” to limit the spread of Covid-19 and maintain low infection rates in the emirate.
Indian father, Rajeev Pravin, says he will take advantage of the remote learning period to ensure his children get the jab:
“I will take my 4- and 7-year-old for vaccination early next week to be safe from the virus. We have been told about the importance of having our kids vaccinated before they return to school for physical learning.”
Many Abu Dhabi schools have sent out messages to parents stressing the importance of vaccinating children against the Coronavirus, as schools that have 85 per cent of their students vaccinated will be able to return to physical learning based on the “Blue Schools initiative”.
The Blue Schools Initiative rolled out by the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge (Adek) recognises vaccination as a critical path to recovery and encourages immunisation of all students, increasing their protection against Covid-19 and minimising the impact of possible infections.
Read more: Covid in UAE: Parents to use remote learning period to vaccinate children – News | Khaleej Times
Parents step in to help amid teaching shortages at Dubai school
Several parents who are trained teachers have been pitching in at a local school after members of staff tested positive for Covid-19.
Dubai College had faced the prospect of scaling back classes but was able to open as planned on Monday when parents volunteered to help.
Most of the 950 pupils at the Al Sufouh school, one of the city’s oldest, were in classrooms for lessons.
“Staff and pupils were smiling as they returned to school this morning and seem pleased to have returned for the new year,” principal Michael Lambert told The National.
“We have more than 92 per cent of pupils in school today and we continue to follow our health and safety protocols as before.
“We are immensely lucky to be supported by fully trained parent volunteers who help to cover lessons for teachers who are absent, and we are optimistic that it will be business as usual this term.”
Read more: Parents step in to help amid teaching shortages at Dubai school (thenationalnews.com)
Working parents struggle to juggle work and remote learning once again
As schools reopened this week, parents whose children have been moved onto online learning due to the COVID situation have been struggling to balance home-schooling supervision with their own office work.
Parent N Nandi’s encounter with Covid-19 began last Tuesday when her five-year-old son tested positive. Soon after, she also tested positive for the virus, quarantining quickly with her son.
But after her son’s school in the UAE reopened for in-person learning post-winter break, Nandi feels “physical difficulties take a back seat in view of the logistical challenges of online schooling,” especially with kids who are as young as her child.
Ms Nandi says, “I work for a media company; sometimes my work merits immediate attention and delivery. On the other hand, my son’s online classes today required me to be physically around him as he was unable to navigate on the TEAMS app independently. Muting and unmuting are all he can do on his own. But then the teacher gave further classwork which needed to be completed on the app which is installed on the iPad.”
She adds, “The teacher was also asking remote learners to take printouts of sheets, finish the assignment and then upload it. This requires constant attention from a grown-up. But I found it really difficult to do all this as I had my own work deadlines.”
KHDA COVID protocol update: No PE classes, and Dubai schools can shift online without approval
Dubai schools can move online for a 48-hour period without prior approval, according to an announcement by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).
Updated health and safety protocols mean that school leaders are now able to move either a class, year/ grade or the whole school to distance learning for two days without needing to go through the usual approval process.
The Dubai private school regulator announced the update on its social media channels on 5 January 2021.
This move forms part of a larger update on school health and safety protocols, introduced in January 2022, in response to the global rise in COVID cases due to the Omicron variant.
Other updates to the protocol include:
No school trips, events and internal gatherings – such as assemblies and performances – must be put on hold. This includes PE lessons. Extra-curricular activities taking place at the school, either within or outside of school hours, must be put on hold. Cafeterias and canteens must be closed, and a distance learning option must be offered to children who display COVID symptoms.
Read the protocol revision for Dubai schools in full: KHDA confirmation: No PE classes, Dubai schools can move online without approval – Dubai schools, Abu Dhabi schools, Sharjah schools with fees, ratings and more – SchoolsCompared.com.
Dubai parents appeal for PCR testing for Dubai private school students
Dubai parents have called for PCR testing in private schools following the recent rise in COVID figures in the UAE and across the world.
According to a social media poll of almost 1,000 UAE parents, 75% said they would prefer schools to require all students to have a PCR test prior to recommencing school, regardless of their travel history.
Dubai private schools did not require pupils to show proof of a valid negative PCR test prior to returning to face-to-face learning on 3 January, although schools were able to mandate this at their own discretion.
By contrast, negative PCR-test results were required for all students returning to school in Sharjah, and it has been reported that all students at Abu Dhabi schools, as well as those studying at public schools across the UAE – which are currently on distance learning for a fortnight – will need to show proof of a negative PCR once face-to-face learning recommences.
The social media poll of parents was held by Dubai-based social media bloggers Megan Kelly and Rebecca Davis on their Instagram profile ‘Just Two Mums’, prompted by the two mothers’ anxiety about the rising COVID figures and the looming spectre of distance learning once again rearing its head.
“I’m all for any regulations that will allow the kids to continue in face-to-face learning for as long as possible,” mother-of-three Megan told SchoolsCompared.com in an exclusive interview.
Schools in England may suspend subjects like music to cope with Covid
Schools in England could suspend the teaching of specialist subjects such as music as part of emergency timetable changes to cope with soaring Covid-related absence rates among staff, headteachers have been advised.
As the new term got under way, most primary schools managed to reopen, but some heads reported difficulties as a result of sick staff and pupils having to isolate, and warned that the situation could deteriorate fast.
It has now emerged that heads might also consider temporarily suspending the teaching of specialist subjects including music and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in order to free up staff for other teaching, according to a Tes report.
Ian Bauckham, who chairs the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) and is also chief executive and director of the Tenax Schools Trust, outlined the proposal as part of a “case study” on a DfE portal for headteachers, seen by Tes.
While high absence levels can be managed to a certain degree, Bauckham wrote, “a point is also reached where resources can be stretched too thinly and alternatives, however undesirable, become necessary”.
Read more: Schools in England may suspend certain subjects to cope with Covid | Schools | The Guardian
UAE Schools and nurseries with places – right now!
A new year has just arrived, and many families are still looking for the perfect school in the UAE. Whether you and your family have just arrived on these sunny shores, or whether you have decided to make a last-minute change for your child, this round up of schools with places available immediately will be a great starting point in your search.
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