The Best School for Value Add and Leaving No Child Behind 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 in the UAE for Value Add and Leaving No Child Behind 2023 – 2024

is awarded to:

Raffles International School Dubai

Our view of Raffles International School Dubai

Web: https://www.rafflesis.com

KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features

Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/raffles-international-school-umm-suqeim-the-review/

Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/raffles-international-school

Value-added is a measure of the impacts on the achievement of children of teachers and schools. A baseline is established, when a child joins a school, generally using SAT tests or an equivalent, which takes account of the differences in prior achievement, and other measured characteristics that students bring with them to a school, when they join. Mixes of Year End and Year Beginning tests throughout a child’s journey at school, often using something called GL CAT 4 testing which is independently calculated, then maps the journey of each child – and gives time for teachers to make interventions to ensure that no child is left behind, but also that children in the middle, or at the top of a year’s performance, are also inspired to continue to achieve, and over achieve.

These tests are taken throughout a child’s education culminating in formal examinations, for example in the British system at age 16 in I/GCSE. The eventual grade achieved is compared with the grade predicted. Schools which see improvements to predicted grades “add value” to a child’s education.

This is generally seen to be attributable to the quality of teaching and the broader school’s impact on children in terms of its culture, treatment of wellbeing, provision of a whole child curriculum, breadth of subject and qualification pathways, focus on individualised learning – and so on. Factors like smaller classes, provision for Determination, extra class provision, the happiness of children, the ability of teachers to inspire, and a culture of caring, all play a part in value-add.

Essentially value add tells you far more about a school than the exam results achieved by students. In an academically selective school, as a rule, exam results will always be high – and it is impossible for any student to achieve higher than the highest grade. With very academic students that are successful in examinations, value add really does not work. However, there are almost no academically selective schools in the UAE. The UAE has a philosophy of inclusion underpinning its ambition for students. As such, value-add is enormously important in nearly every case to understand how good a school is and how well it achieves for students.

Finally, a school in which all students always meet their predicted grades, or exceeds them, is a school that leaves no child behind. Where students fall through the net, for whatever reason, something has clearly gone wrong.

This Award recognises those schools for whom value-add is placed centre stage, but also schools that achieve that value-add in a kind way – we have excluded from our shortlist any sort of hothouse school, or indeed those schools that heavily restrict their curriculum to try and push for high exam results. We are not interested in schools that bully children to look good in exam league tables. We are not interested in schools that simply see students as a means to an end of securing Admissions income.

In assessing Value Add we have looked to a spectrum of factors that we believe contribute to defining an outstanding school for children, including areas like Child Happiness, School Policies on Bullying and their impact, breadth of subject and qualification pathways, approaches to Determination, the quality of school leadership – the myriad of metrics that we believe must be taken into account when giving Value Add… value.

One other really important point to note is that securing predicted grades is not easy. When schools achieve plus ½ or +1 grade at I/GCSE it is an outstanding achievement. There are schools that achieve + 2 places, but this is statistically almost impossible from an entire cohort. You are really looking for an average to give you a baseline, year on year, for how well a school educates all of its children over time. You have to look too at the bigger picture of how many students schools welcome for whom English is an Additional Language, and how many are Children of Determination.

There are many complications in all this – not least that there is no one standard for measuring value-add, nor is there a national calculation across every different type of school. The only commonality currently is through KHDA, ADEK, SPEA and other school regulators measures of Progress. In our looking at this Award we included only those schools achieving across the board Very Good progress and above.

For reasons of confidentiality, we clearly cannot discuss any data that could in any way identify or reflect on children, either individually or as a year group. However, what we can do is talk in the round about the bigger picture at Raffles International school and what makes it so stand-out for ensuring that no child is left behind.

The Top Schools Award for Best Schools for Value Add in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024. Pictured: Tabitha Barda, Senior Editor SchoolsCompared.com (Left) meeting with Steven Giles, Principal, Raffles International School Dubai (Right)

Steven Giles, Principal, Raffles International School, has a long track record evangelising and implementing Value-add systems in schools, this both locally and internationally. In 2007 his school finished Top 15 in the United Kingdom for contextual value-added progress for year 11. In 2007-08 the school finished Top 11 in the United Kingdom. The pool was some 4190 Secondary schools – and his school stood in the top 0.26% of the country.

Mr Giles told us why it mattered:

“We ensured that children had teachers who they loved – because this was how they learned better. We used Value-add to lead the interventions for each, and every, child. Young lives were changed as students struggling within impoverished and poor inner-city backgrounds would go on to be the first in their families to go to university.”

Mr Giles school was subsequently ranked Outstanding by Ofsted in 2011, this for him “clearly evidencing the central role of Value-add in delivering Outstanding schools that really work for every child – and certainly schools that leave no child behind.”

These same VA strategies have been introduced in every school Mr Giles has led over the last six years since being posted to the UAE. Inspection grades have moved up in every school he has led:

“Value-add has been the foundations for our improving in 14 areas of our last KHDA Inspection in December 2022.”

EDSTATICA^TM data finds that more than 93% of parents recommend Raffles International School. This is one of the highest scores of any school in the Emirates when aligned with the size of survey sample. One of the reasons for this level of recommendation is the overriding sense that the school is invested in the individual needs of children – and making sure that they are supported on each step of their journey. Value Add is intrinsic to this:

Mr Giles is passionate on its importance:

“Value-added is a crucial aspect of education at Raffles International School. It is arguably the most powerful tool we have to measure the impact that the school, teachers, and programs have on student learning and growth.

“Value-added is important because it provides a way for us to measure the effectiveness of the school and teachers beyond just test scores.

“It helps us to identify teachers that are successfully helping students who are struggling to make significant progress. It also helps us to identify teachers and students who need additional support so that we can rapidly assign the resources they need.

“Value-add, in conjunction with our investment in the Whole Child, the happiness of all our children and our commitment to individualised learning is, in my view, the absolute cornerstone of our journey to Outstanding.”

Mr Giles continues by explaining how Value-add is measured and its rationale:

“We measure each student’s ability on entrance to the school using CAT4 to give us an understanding of strengths and potential. We then set challenging targets based on this, and the work students complete in their first few weeks at school.

“Every six weeks we measure each student’s current level and compare this to the target. Where students are underachieving, we implement a comprehensive and inspirational intervention programme with the aim of supporting the student to catch up – and over-exceed against that inflection point.

“Our guiding philosophy is always to ensure that no child is ever left behind. To do this we work with our parents, keeping them fully informed about progress throughout the year. Any student achieving their target will always be making above expected progress (and showing the value we add as a school). This is because the targets we set at Raffles International School are ambitious, and above the expected flightpath destination of each student.

“We know how outstanding our teachers are, and we believe in the capacity of all children to develop under their care and teaching. This is why we are ambitious.”

We asked Mr Giles how his school responded specifically to children struggling and at risk of being left behind:

“We will not let it happen. Throughout the school we involve our parents and work together to develop a programme to support the relevant student. This can take a wide range of different approaches.

“Let me give some examples.

“One major intervention we use is to provide an additional teacher inside the classroom. As the student catches up, we then withdraw this support gradually and our specialists will go on to assist another student who needs assistance. But we are also a very caring school with a strong focus on giving back and leadership. We have many senior students who volunteer to support the younger students. This happens both inside the classroom and after school. This is something that I am really proud of.

“There are many other ways we intervene to help our children. We have Read Recovery Programmes that are designed to support learners that have literacy needs.

“In the Senior School we have after school support for students in all areas and students get individual programmes to support their learning. Any student that does not make the necessary progress by the time the next progress check (generally six weeks) immediately has an individual programme written for them in that subject. Inside lessons the teachers are very aware of any children in need of additional support. They write detailed plans for these students and set up personalised programmes of support.

“Our teachers are conviction educationalists – and, again, no child in my school can, or will, be left behind.”

Value-add and Covid

Mr Giles explained how the challenges of Covid provide a very important backdrop to understanding Value-add over the last six years:

“There is no school that has not grappled with the impacts of Covid. However outstanding I think our school responded to the pandemic, and particularly in Distance Learning, the pandemic had knock-on impacts on so many students across the UAE – and in different ways. No student is the same. You cannot generalise.

“As a school we have worked through many issues surrounding wellbeing, catching up, confidence… like all schools this has been a very new set of circumstances to deal with and I am sure that literature on its impacts will establish new principles and extremely valuable lessons for future pandemics in the years to come. There are lessons to be learned.

“The success of our Value-added-led covid recovery strategy is extremely evident in Raffles International School GCSE results over the past 6 years. The latest cohort achieved the highest percentage of top grades (A*/A or 7-9) when compared to any other GCSE cohort in the history of the school. This is despite them spending two years out of their five in Secondary School in covid-impacted education – and being the first cohort since 2019 to sit externally marked and verified exams. This cohort even outperformed those of its previous two cohorts in 2020 and 2021 in terms of A*/A (7-9) grades – with both 2020 and 2021 cohorts the subject of Teacher-led predicted grades rather than those arising from external examinations.

“In other schools we generally saw the inverse, with grades, and Value-add, falling.”

At Raffles International School the same inverse relationship holds true in gold standard A Level results. The percentage of A*A grades increased from 5.56% in the summer of 2019 to 37.19% in Summer 2022. This is higher than the percentage of A*/A Grades achieved by students in Summer 2020, this a year dramatically impacted by covid and one again in which Teacher-led predicted grades, rather than those arising from external examinations, defined the data. This cohort achieved 25% A*A.

“I believe that the results evidence just how successful the recovery initiatives that we immediately implemented post-covid were for our students, with all the support that entailed. Remember, these are the students who spent much of their final years at school in distance learning, but who, as a result of our powered interventions, went on to significantly outperform those students sitting for the last fully externally examined subjects in the Summer of 2019.”

Value-add data

Determined Children and EAL Background

Raffles International School is both academically and Determined-inclusive. The school educates 149 Students of Determination and 72 students with severe English as an Additional Language needs. Additional support includes (but is not limited to):

• Individual learning support assistants (ILSAs).
• Individual education plans.
• Student or educational need specific CPD delivered by the Head of Inclusion to all relevant teachers.
• Sharing of best strategies documents for each student.
• Additional ‘Withdrawal’ sessions from Learning Support Teachers.
• Personalised curriculums to best suit the level and needs of all students.
• Regular meetings with parents and care givers to ensure all areas of required support are catered for – and to ensure that parents, or caregivers, are regularly and fully informed of the progress made by their child.
• Regular training for all teachers on working with, and supporting, Students of Determination. At raffles International Philosophy our ethics, strategy and aim is for every teacher to regards themselves, and have competence, as a Teacher of inclusion.
• Forensic, deep dive analysis at SLT level for all children individually, this cascaded down to departments, year groups and teachers to ensure any gaps are identified and suitable strategies implemented.

Most students at Raffles International School would technically be classed as EAL, as English is their additional language. Seventy-two students are identified as needing additional support to effectively access the curriculum.

Additional support includes (but is not limited to) the following:

• Whole staff training on working with EAL students.
• Department specific training on supporting EAL students.
• EAL pull out sessions (due to exemption from other subjects).
• Individual support within lessons.
• Individualised resources and curriculum to ensure student can access the work being set.
• English Department teachers working in small group interventions with EAL students.
• Inclusion Department teachers working in small group interventions with EAL students.

The achievement in Value-add at Raffles International School, given this context – one in which the school strategy is built around its importance as the single most powerful lever to leave no child behind, is so impressive. But what the technical detail of Value Add does not reveal is the sheer impact of this investment on the happiness that flows throughout this school. This is one of those very rare schools where the happiness of children – and their welfare, is placed centre stage – and that dynamic of care extends to their families too. This is a school that listens to children – and parents. Mr Giles is an inspiration here – and the sense of joy he brings to his purpose is something to behold. The impact on teachers – the sense that they are valued, is palpable. There is nothing he will not do to deliver for children – and that is exactly how it should be.

Raffles International School is our definitive, and much admired, Best School in The Emirates for Value-add and Leaving No child Behind in the Top School Awards 2023 – 2024.

Award Presentation

The Top Schools Award for Best School for Value Add and Leaving No Child Behind will be presented to Raffles International School 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 Bursaries, Scholarships and Care for Parents category follow. For reasons of confidentiality we have not provided details of the many ways each of the following schools make profound interventions each year to care for parents. Each of the following schools are recognised for their profound contribution to the value-added achievement of children, and the recognition of its importance, in UAE Education:

GEMS Founders School, Al Barsha

Web: https://www.gemsfoundersschool-dubai.com/en

KHDA: Good with Very Good and Outstanding Features

Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/dubai-all-through/gems-founders-school-al-barsha-south/

Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/gems-founders-school-dubai

Jumeirah College

Web: https://www.gemsjc.com

KHDA: Outstanding

Review: https://schoolscompared.com/curricula/a-levels/jumeirah-college-al-safa/

Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/jumeirah-college

Repton Dubai

Web: https://www.reptondubai.org

KHDA: Outstanding

Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/repton-school-dubai-nad-al-sheba-3/

Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/repton-school-dubai

Uptown International School Dubai

Web: https://uischool.ae

KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features

Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/dubai-all-through/uptown-school-mirdif/

Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/uptown-international-school

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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