The Best School for Sport 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 Sport in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024
is awarded to:
The British School Al Khubairat
Our view of The British School Al Khubairat Abu Dhabi
Web: https://www.britishschool.sch.ae
ADEK: Outstanding / BSO 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/
The choice and mix of competitive, fixture-directed and inclusive sport (the latter led by staff outside the Physical Education) department we rank outstanding at this quite beautiful, and quite remarkable, school.
The purposeful engagement of faculty outside the Physical Education Department to lead leisure-based non-competitive sports (i.e. those not directed towards winning major competitions) is clever. Not all children are talented at Sport, or particularly enjoy being perceived as failing. This approach, which makes enjoyment (and health) the primary focus engages every type of child. Sport too is indelibly linked with wellbeing (and hubs BSAKs Wellbeing Week).
Sport is lead at BSAK by Johnny Coombs, NPQSL, Director of Sport who is also Chairman of the BSME Sports Collective. Charismatic, ambitious for children and ambitious to change the world through Sport, he has had quite the impact both within BSAK and across the sporting life of young people beyond its walls. Mr Coombs told us:
“BSAK is an inspiring place to work and live on a daily basis and our students are excited by the amount of opportunity that they have on offer during their school
day. Our belief in sport playing a pivotal role in providing a holistic education, means that the School’s investment is significant in terms of staffing and curriculum and the time that we invest in taking an innovative approach to providing PE, academic, competitive, House fun and performance opportunities to every student.”
BSAK engages with:
The BSME Games – more here
ADISSA – more here
DASSA – more here
COBIS – more here
Particularly creditable is the (prestigious) BSAK Tri-series 7s (Football, Netball and Rugby), a BSAK-run tournament engaging schools from across the UAE. This year the BSAK 7s were won by JESS.
Over 200 students from Primary and Secondary represent BSAK in the ADISSA Leagues in Football. Many more students participate in developmental and recreational football clubs as part of the school’s co-curricular programme. Competitive teams are run for boys and girls at all ages including U19, U16, U14, U12, U11 and Primary U9.
Rugby is played from Year 3 in the Primary school through to the U19 1st XV in the Sixth Form. 200+ students engage in after-school rugby training and matches.
Touch rugby is played competitively at U9, U11, U14 and U19.
Netball is a played by girls from Years 3 to 13. It is played for both fun and competitively. The school runs Teams at U19, U16, U14 and U12.
Swimming is recreational and competitive. Swim Squads train four times a week.
Cricket is played by U12, U14 and U16 teams internally and as part of ADISSA leagues.
Golf is played competitively and recreationally.
The range of Sports, beyond what are arguably (note the word arguably!) the core sports of Football, Rugby and Netball, has absolutely outstanding reach. Alternatives abound including basketball, a wide breadth of pool related sports, engagement in the International Exercise Challenge, the A to Z of athletics from hurdles to shotput, Wake up! And Shake up! for little ones and their families, the list goes on… And Sport includes activities like Golf and Yoga, that signal to all students that it is not all about the rough and tumble of team sports. Anyone that has engaged in either yoga, or golf, knows that these are exceptionally physically and mentally demanding disciplines in their own right.
The school has its own landmark Sport Awards and Gala Dinners too which celebrate child and student achievement. Reading through the write-ups of individual children who have succeeded in their own personal journeys is both moving and a testament to the way Sport has a depth here beyond places on a score card.
ECA provision engages with a near endless array of other sports.
Without doubt, BSAK is the leading school for Sport in Abu Dhabi when measured across simple metrics of success in competitive fixtures. You can argue that it suffers some disadvantage because Sport, generally, is strongest in Dubai, not least because of the sheer number of schools, and particularly, but not exclusively, British schools. Were you to transplant BSAK to Dubai, with the opportunities that presents in terms of proximity to its sister Sporting schools, it is more than conceivable it would regularly top the leagues.
But this Award is not just about success in tournaments. The picture is much bigger than this.
What is much more defining of this school’s bigger purpose is the focus on Sport as foundation of school life, and the way that it Sport is structured to build community.
This means, for example, that inclusion is really important. We love the way the way that BSAK addresses this by engaging with members of staff outside the core Physical Education Department to lead on non-competitive Sports as above. This, of course, engages those in the BTEC Sport Department, but it goes further. By removing the sting of perceived failure – something almost unavoidable if you link competitive and leisure approaches to sport together (you need competitive Sport to precisely be competitive), room is opened up for all children to take part – and be successful, because the focus can freely be, when sport is a leisure pursuit, as much about sharing an enjoyable activity as the occasional win. Being happy matters. This is taken a step further in the way the school treats sports as a foundation of wellbeing, so much so that it hubs Wellbeing Week.
It also means that The British School Al Khubairat is a school that reaches out its hand of friendship to other schools across the Emirates. And it goes out of its way to nurture those relationships. Community matters.
This Award is resolutely not about who wins more competitions (by our complex, but probably simplistic calculation, JESS would probably have the edge here this year in that regard). Trying to tot up wins across countless Sports and age-groups, and across so many competitions, would only lead to dispute anyway amongst so many schools for whom Sport is centrifugal to how they define themselves. The joys of statistics…
We spoke with Mark Leppard MBE, Headmaster, The British School Al Khubairat. Mr Leppard told us:
“I think one of the great things about sport in schools is that if done correctly it really can be for all. It’s about providing the appropriate platform.
“My goal has always been that school sport should provide a platform for 2 things:
- Opportunity to enjoy sport as participant, official or spectator; and
- Understanding that Sport is the bedrock for a healthy active lifestyle beyond PE lessons.
Even as a sports player myself, as soon as the whistle blew, I wanted to chat to the opposite team. My Dad taught me that.
Ironically yesterday I played Paddle Tennis for the first time in my life with a friend I have known since Nursery and my 2 sons. It was great fun and we laughed, chatted – and today ache!
For me… that is Sport.”
We also absolutely love the way the school, through its Tri 7s, engages with teams across the UAE. This is one of the most lovely sporting tournaments in the region. It is competitive, but it is a happy, good-natured tournament precisely because it is school-run – and school run by one that is respected by other schools. It is fantastically well organised. You only to have hear the sportsmanship and genuine affection with which JESS is held by BSAK, despite pulling off what they openly describe as an astonishing and thoroughly deserved win in the 7s in 2023. It has a very different feel to the bigger ADISSA and DASSA league tournaments. In fact, we think it is quite telling to look at those schools which engage with it and the travel it engenders.
Sport engages both boys and girls equally and inspirationally. There’s no sense that boys or girls sport is more important. And interestingly, whilst of course the school brims with pride at their teams’ success, it is always about the individual students who take part – and their journeys, their successes, their challenges that have been overcome, and the way individual students work together as teams. The way Sport “feels” at this school is different. One way you can easily judge what exactly a school holds important is by how it treats its reserves, and how much opportunity they are given. Feedback to us here is so positive here.
Facilities are Tier 1 premium. Of course, we know that DESC probably has the best Sport facilities in the region (although we can think of other schools that would argue that!) – but what is at BSAK for children is by any standards phenomenal. And we love the way the pitches take pride of place within the school, rather than being a trek outside it. It really makes the point. Sport, in the way it is physically structured here, becomes significantly less “scary” a prospect for those whose first inclination might well be to seek out a chess board or a reading book.
The bigger picture still is the inclusiveness of this beautiful school – and the many ways that it ensures that every child finds their mojo – and sees it celebrated to the nth.
Sport leadership is inspirational. It comes from the Head ultimately – Mark Leppard adores Sport and his enthusiasm is infectious. But it is professionalised here in one of finest Sports leaders in the Emirates in the shape of Johnny Coombs, NPQSL, Director of Sport, who is also Chairman of the BSME Sports Collective. We love the way the school has stepped in to provide leadership opportunities for him to develop in such a way as not to take him away from his extraordinary impact on the lives of children – and his galvanising of staff to bring the absolute best out of them.
Sometimes we forget that being an educator in Sport is not easy. It is physically hard, requires near infinite amounts of self-discipline, requires someone who is a people’s person (and you cannot learn that) – and you must command the respect, and love, of all those you work with to build teams that can be success in all the ways that matters, whether in terms of match wins, or the recognition that taking part matters equally. Having good grace matters in life, and Sport is one of the few places you learn it, if often in the hardest ways through gritted teeth. It also requires technical knowledge as complex as any in its sister academic disciplines – and requires you to sacrifice much of your life outside school at weekends and during the week. It is a tough profession – and you need to have a calling for it. It is a vocation. Mr Cooms rises to this in all its aspects, and it is inspirational, earning lovely words from his colleagues across the UAE. He does this without arrogance or conceit; for Mr Coombs it is about Sport and children – and they are both his life.
Mr Coombs told us:
“My special thanks goes to Mark Leppard for his commitment to Sport and his assistance on and off the field. Our staff run UAE wide BSAK 7 series, our commitment to enable students to play fixtures in Dubai, our team training, the fun we achieve through house activities and our success in competition are a testament to the creativity that expresses our passion for sport and it wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t part of the ethos of the School.”
Primary Sports, and its engagement with families, is outstanding. These are vital year groups to engage children, if they are to integrate Sport within their world view of what matters in their lives to come.
More on Primary Sport can be found here.
One other way that you can truly understand how important Sport is to a school, and the way that it is important, is to look at external communication. This reflects the importance a school sees in celebrating its students, and the tone with which they are celebrated is so telling. It is also a delight to see BSAK celebrating all the achievements of other schools – Sport has always been about more than winning. You can gain many insights by exploring BSAK’s twitter feeds here:
https://twitter.com/BSAKsports
There is much else we could write about Sport at BSAK, but, finally, the BSAK Sports Awards really captures for us the way that Sport is structured, perceived and celebrated. When you read the rationale for awarding children for their successes, that rationale is so much less about Sport in vacuum, than about each individual child personally, and the journeys they have taken, obstacles overcome. Those gifted in Sports are humanised as precisely human, three dimensional, approachable, and warm. Children at BSAK are never seen as simply machines to deliver goals or points on a table. It is quite lovely, and so very telling, that despite the countless accolades of this giant of a school for those gifted in Sport, there is always time and affirmation of those who are less gifted. This is a joined up school. Those gifted in Sport are never Other, and nor do they Other those less gifted than themselves.
The British School Al Khubairat deserves all the many accolades it receives on the field, and in the pool, and on the courses. But also deserves this Award for the bigger picture of BSAK being a school that makes Sport much more than the sum of its parts, and its understanding that Sport is about helping all our young men and women becomes the very best that they can be. Even the Sporting Duffers amongst us. It sets an example, and we think, a very fine one for all of us, young and old.
Award Presentation
Best-School-for-Sport-The-British-School-Al-K-Winner Certificate
The Top Schools Award for Best School for Sport in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 will be presented to The British School Al Khubairat 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 School for Sport School category follow. Each of the following schools are recognised for their profound contribution to the discipline of Sport in UAE Education.
Dubai College
KHDA: Outstanding
Our views: review here and here
Web: https://www.dubaicollege.org/school-life/sport
“Many get Dubai College so wrong. There is a mythology that has grown up about the school that you have to be Einstein to secure a place at the school and that all that matters is academics. But it is just not true. Listen To Michael Lamber, Headmaster, Dubai College speak on almost any occasion, and he will speak as much about the whole child, and particularly Sport, Music and the Performing Arts. And gifted children in any of these subject areas applying for a place at Dubai College are so valued by the school. In fact an academic child without that broader interest in what makes us human, is not so likely to secure a place at Dubai College at all, regardless of their gifts elsewhere. You can read a very inspiring interview with Mr Lambert here, one in which you might have an inkling that he might just be a secret progressive, although he might not admit it! Without doubt one of the finest schools in the emirates for Sport, there is everything here for children to find their mojo. A quite exceptional school and for all the right reasons.
Dubai English Speaking College
KHDA: Outstanding
Our views: review here and here and here and here
“Winner of the Top Schools Award for Sport in both 2017 – 2018 and 2019 – 20, Dubai English Speaking College (and really this should include its extraordinary slipstream Dubai English Speaking School, which far too often gets forgotten for what it truly is: the real heroine of this school and arguably its biggest engine) is the only school to have won our highest Award in Sport for two consecutive years. What is achieved here astonishes in the fullest sense of the term. It’s hard to argue too that in terms of both investment and facilities no other school comes close. Sport matters here. And that investment pays dividends. No aspiring Sports Man, or Sports Woman, achieves anything less here than a beyond outstanding education in Sport – and the road each child follows is a lesson on inspiration.”
Jumeirah English Speaking School
KHDA: Outstanding
Our views: review here and here
Web: https://www.jess.sch.ae/sport
“You cannot talk about the top schools for Sport in the Emirates without including JESS. Whilst we do not reveal the detail of our discussion each year in each category, it would be true to say that JESS cam very close in 2023. There was no small amount of discussion. Again, everything is here at this quite beautiful, extraordinarily ambitious school for all children in Sport.
Worth noting too, that on our calculation, JESS was the highest performing school for child sporting achievement on the field, track, pool and courts in 2023.
We cannot do better than quote JESS in full in its explanation of what Sport means:
“The ethos of Jumeirah English Speaking School is focused on inclusion and participation and as you enter our new sports centre you are met by the following quote which goes to some length to sum up much of our philosophy.
Sport is friendship,
Sport is health,
Sport is education,
Sport is life,
Sport brings the world together.
Juan Antonio Samaranch – 1996 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony
At JESS, Sport and Physical Education play a fundamental part in every student’s education in which the main focus is wellness and wellbeing. Sport embraces and explores the values of the school, in particular those of respect, commitment and excellence. Above all, JESS Sport is for everyone. It is an integral part of a broad education that seeks to produce well-rounded individuals who are equipped to take their place and ‘Make a Difference’ in the world with confidence and conviction.”
This is the most life affirming and inspiring explanation and rationale for Sport we have seen published so centre stage by any school in the emirates – and it is absolutely real.”
American School of Dubai
KHDA: Good with Very Good and near-across-the-board Outstanding features
Our views: review here and here
Winner of the Top Schools Award for Best School for Sport in 2021 – 22, the American School of Dubai celebrates just how exceptional American Education is in delivering a whole child education for students. Whilst arguments rage about whether the IB or A Levels are better, many of us realise that this is to miss the point entirely if what is equally important is a whole child education and breathing the heart and soul of life into the education of our children. This is where the American School of Dubai lights the touch paper of a meaningful education that delivers perfect a truly 360 degrees education with all the depth to sustain each of its students for the fullest life to come. Sport is centre stage in this – and it is something to behold.”
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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