The Best School for Post-16 Education and Sixth Form in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 Revealed. Top Schools Award Winner. Official.
The Winner
The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Awards for
The Best School for Post-16 Education and Sixth Form in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024
is awarded to:
Cranleigh Abu Dhabi
Our view of Cranleigh Abu Dhabi
ADEK: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/cranleigh-abu-dhabi
Cranleigh Abu Dhabi was founded on Saadiyat Island in September 2014. Very closely linked to its home school, Cranleigh, in Sussex, UK, Cranleigh Abu Dhabi is the only Cranleigh sister school in the world. Standards run high because of this – but it is also true to say that today both schools learn considerably from each other.
This is why looking at Cranleigh you really need to begin with the UK school. You really get an idea of a school from its students, and the following video captures really well the way that school develops character – but crucially also shines a light on the importance of breadth of options and enabling each child to find their own journey. Re the first, there is none of the arrogance here that you will unfortunately find in many of the top UK public schools. Despite being hugely accomplished, what comes across is young men and women finding their voice, with passion and some creditable hesitancy, being supported throughout a rich Sixth Form journey, filled to bursting with academic learning, and whole child engagement in cultural life, whilst being supported by teachers who love their subjects and are educationalists by passion and vocation:
Martin Reader, Headmaster of Cranleigh in the UK, captures, beautifully, an inclusive culture designed to support young men and women through a richness of opportunity and breadth of opportunities at the school. This is a Sixth Form, post-16 environment which builds character and helps each student become who they are, in a life of thinking, and living, “beyond the test.”
“A Cranleighan is recognisable by their knowledge and ambition, their confidence and compassion, their integrity and resilience, and their love of life.
[…]
“At the heart of a Cranleigh education is the breadth of our offer. On the sports field, we excel, and sit comfortably amongst the finest schools in the land. In the concert hall, our musicians never fail to deliver exceptional performances of classical, jazz and popular music, and in the theatre, where pupils continue our great dramatic tradition. In short, Cranleigh is a school where all talents and interests flourish.”
And ethically, what underpins a Cranleigh education, Mr Reader continues, in a direct nod to Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, is a set of moral values that are outward looking, not selfish, focused on a life recognising privilege and giving back through service, and by recognising and responding to inequality and injustice:
“As our footprint across the world grows, I never want us to lose sight of our core values and ethos. A Cranleigh education, wherever it is received, is about nurturing the mind, heart and spirit, and our schools must be dynamic, soulful places that inspire our students to always give their all and to always give back. If we succeed in this endeavour, then we will have played our part in making the world a better place.”
Mr Reader emphasises the stakes powerfully:
“For the next generation of adults, being empathic towards one another will be key to tackling some of the extreme ideals and opinions that are having a negative impact on the world we live in.”
In understanding Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, this provides very important cultural context and ethics – these value and Sixth Form ideals shared across both school without compromise.
We think, however, the Sixth Form offer at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi in many ways shines even more brightly in comparison with its UK counterpart – and brims with integrity in doing so. This is because in Abu Dhabi, the breadth of qualification pathways and subject offer is more comprehensive. This is driven by a much more inclusive welcome to students than the UK school which, whilst a long way from being a hothouse school, or one that heavily restricts its intake, is nevertheless partially selective. Because of this, technical opportunities, at least in terms of qualification pathways, are limited to a single Level 3 BTEC in Sport. In the UK, 21 A Levels are offered – with beyond-outstanding subject breadth. Both schools offer the outstanding EPQ qualification.
At Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, 21 A Levels are also offered, but with a further 3 Level 3 BTECs in Engineering, Sport and Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. Again, this breadth of opportunity is quite exceptional in the UAE. In Abu Dhabi, and arguably in the UAE as a whole, it is Cranleigh Abu Dhabi and The British School Al Khubairat that are setting the Sixth Form, POst-16 benchmarks in British Education – both significantly beyond-outstanding in their offer for students. Cranleigh has creditably followed BSAK in offering BTEC Engineering, a subject it pioneered in the Emirates.
The point here is that Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, unlike so many sister schools to prestigious UK counterpart home schools in the UAE, is walking the walk on delivering an extremely high-quality education genuinely rooted in the culture of its founding school – but also, vitally, mapping that offer sympathetically with its own ethics and understanding of being a school rooted deeply in the Emirates. And it is going further, and in many ways improving on its home school in doing so. And that is how it should be.
Worth noting that this is the first, and currently only school in the UAE to offer A Level Politics, a phenomenally interesting and important Social Science – and so telling of a globally outward looking school.
If we really had to push a critique here – and we can only do this because of just how impressive the offer here is, it is the absence of Philosophy A Level. In our view, in a world defined by the capacity to think and innovate, this is a subject that should really have a home at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi.
The Sixth Form subject offer at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi includes A Levels in:
- Arabic
- Biology
- Business
- Chemistry
- Computer Science
- Drama
- Economics
- English Language
- English Literature
- Fine Art
- Art, Craft and Design
- Photography
- French
- Geography
- History
- Mathematics
- Music
- Physics
- Politics
- Psychology
- Spanish
BTEC options (as above) include:
- Engineering
- Sport
- Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
A Level and BTEC results are stellar. In 2023, at A Level, 44% of students achieved the A*/A grade, 70% achieved an A*/A/ B and 90% achieved across the A*- C spectrum. The pass rate was 100%.
Add to this the spectrum of whole child and co-curricular opportunities from those in Sport and The Performing Arts, to those in Dance, Debating and Yoga, and you begin to understand the rich tapestry of life at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi beyond the test.
In summary: breadth of opportunities; phenomenal facilities including a landmark Sixth Form Centre; a culture deeply ethical and compassionate; one of the few Tier 1 schools to deliver a British education true to its roots at home; a school rooted in a life “beyond the test”, and, both outstanding leadership and teaching… Cranleigh Abu Dhabi is a phenomenon that year on year gets better and better.
In our view, today, Cranleigh Abu Dhabi offers the definitive, beyond-outstanding, British Sixth Form in the UAE – one that is unambiguously world class.
Award Presentation
Best-School-For-Post-16-Ed-Cranleigh-Abu-Dhabi-Winner-CertificateThe Top Schools Award for Best School for Post-16 Education and Sixth Form in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 will be presented to Cranleigh Abu Dhabi 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 Post-16 education in the UAE.
Dubai College
Web: https://www.dubaicollege.org
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/dubai-college
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/secondary-schools/dubai-college-al-sufouh/
Dubai English Speaking College (DESC) – review here, and here
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/dubai-english-speaking-college
Nord Anglia International School Dubai
Web: https://www.nordangliaeducation.com/nas-dubai
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/nord-anglia-international-school-dubai
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/nord-anglia-international-school-dubai-al-barsha/
The British School Al Khubairat
Web: https://www.britishschool.sch.ae
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/british-school-al-khubairat-abu-dhabi
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/curricula/a-levels/the-british-school-al-khubairat-al-mushrif/
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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