Awards Day Thirteen! The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Award for Best School for Technical and Vocational Stream Education in the UAE 2021. Official Entry Form now LIVE.
The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Awards, the UAE’s definitive School Awards, recognising the region’s most outstanding schools, teachers and educationalists, today publishes full information for entering the thirteenth of this year’s Awards: The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Award for the Best School for Technical and Vocational Stream Education in the UAE 2021.
Entry for each of the remaining individual Awards are being published daily between now and the 8th May 2021. For details of the Awards published to date, click here.
This Award recognises those schools that found the education provided to its students on a curriculum that offers technical stream pathways for students. In English and other international curriculum schools, this is generally provided by the BTEC qualification. Within International Baccalaureate Schools, this is usually delivered via the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme (itself usually, but not always, founded on BTEC). The technical/vocational qualifications can be diverse, but examples include Engineering, Tourism, Design, Technology, Business, E-Gaming and Sport. The technical stream qualification may be delivered as a separate or parallel pathway, or included within a stand-alone qualification, as is the case with the IB CrP.
FIRST STEPS
Please complete this application form to enter your school for The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Award for The Best School for Technical and Vocational Stream Education in the UAE 2021. A PDF of the form can be downloaded at the end of this article.
Please only enter for those Awards in which you believe you have a very powerful case to be considered by judges. It is far better to enter for a single Award – and complete the application for this with passion and depth of insight, than apply for multiple awards, and stretch your ability to make your case too thin.
Not entering for an Award, does not preclude any school from being considered. All schools in the UAE are considered within the judging process, drawing on expertise and data across Which Media. Entering for an Award, however, does ensure that we have access to accurate, up-to-date information on your school – and information strengthened by your decisions on how to answer the following questions.
Please use the questions as a guide; you may wish to draw out other strengths to support your case.
Formal entry for this award must be submitted with the agreement of the Headteacher of the school.
BREADTH OF COURSE PROVISION AND MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL CHILDREN
Aim for 1000 – 2000 Words
Support the case that your school provides an outstanding quality of technical stream options for students to ensure that every child at your school can meet his or her individual ambitions, potential, and ability in full. Provide paragraphs answering the following: (1) How our facilities develop an outstanding technical/vocational education for students at our school; (2) Our outstanding teachers; (3) Breadth of technical/vocational stream subject choice and how it specifically meets the needs of our intake policy; (4) What makes us different and where we excel; (5) Our slipstream graduation universities/colleges/industries; (6) Our financial investment in our teachers and students; (7) Our ethics; (9) Our approach to parents (10) Our links outside the school to relevant industries/external bodies.
ENSURING THAT NO CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND
Aim for 200 – 500 Words plus relevant statistical tables
Support the case that your school provides value added achievement to ensure that every child leaves your school meeting or exceeding baseline (1) technical/vocational and (2) whole child expectations on joining your school. Please include a paragraph explaining why your school has chosen to provide technical/vocational stream options.
INVESTING IN CHILDREN
Aim for 250 – 500 words.
Support the case that your school ploughs back a percentage of investment into facilities and/or teacher salaries and/or resources and/or school improvements and/or specific initiatives to financially support parents/families, year-on-year, to improve and/or sustain education for children. Please detail your approach and investments. Please include a paragraph on how your school has sought to assist families and students impacted by Covid 19. Discus where you have focused the resources of your school during the last two years and the rationale for doing so. You may wish to provide context through discussion of previous investment and planned future investment over the next five years – particularly those focused on supporting your vocational/technical pathways.
THE POWER OF A TECHNICAL/VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Aim for 500 words to 2000 words.
Describe how and why the technical/vocational stream curriculum education you deliver sets the global benchmark for an outstanding education for students. What are the stand-out features of an archetypal blended technical/vocational education – and how does your school meet and improve on these. Explain how you believe and hope that vocational education will evolve over the next 10 years, and how your school is preparing for the opportunities ahead. In this area you may wish to discuss T- Levels, or plans to expand the choice of options offered to students. Finally, consider the view that “Our school is uniquely placed to bring out the strengths of a vocational/technical curriculum education for students, strengths that alternative purely academic curriculum approaches cannot match.”
STRENGTHENING YOUR CASE
Aim for 500 Words
Focused on achievements this year, and in the last full pre-Covid year, provide information that is not included above that supports your application to be considered the benchmark technical/vocational curriculum school in the UAE “against the odds.” Discuss how Covid 19 has impacted on the technical stream pathways you deliver and how your school has responded.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Aim for 1000 – 2000 words.
Collate a document with evidence supporting the above, together with all areas of provision, investment, innovation and achievement that supports your school being considered the benchmark school for a technical/vocational pathway education for students in the UAE. This should include at least 2 quotations each from current students and parents at your school. A quotation should be included from each Head of Technical/Vocational Subject Area at your school outlining their ambitions for students and what makes their pathway stand-out. Finally, a contextualising quote should be included from the School Principal highlighting the ethics, history, achievements of the school and its contribution to education, historic, current and planned, in the UAE. Provide details of the number of boys and girls that study technical/vocational pathways and explain this. We are looking for passion, inspiration, meaningfulness and clear investment in the school’s sense of purpose, values and deep-seated commitment to technical/vocational stream pathways for students within the evidence provided in this section.
MAKING AN IMPACT IN YOUR APPLICATION
As part of the following application, you will strengthen your case considerably by sending the following survey links to your students, teachers and parents, asking them to independently provide feedback on your school as part of your entry to the Top Schools Awards 2021.
Teachers should complete the survey here:
https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/surveys/the-teacher-survey
Parents should complete the survey here:
https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/surveys/school-survey
Older students (Grade 10-12/Year 11-13 ONLY) should complete the survey here:
https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/surveys/the-student-survey
The statistical results of these surveys are valued, shared with judges and used in our decision making.
In addition we use data provided to us under your school profile on the Which Media database. This can be accessed through our sister site WhichSchoolAdvisor.com.
In particular please complete the following sections from the Admin:
- Facilities
- Sports offering
- Scholarships and Bursaries
- Details
- Demographics
- Memberships and accreditations
- General info
- Fees
It is critical that the data relied on by judges is accurate and up-to-date. If you do not have a school account on our sister site, WhichSchoolAdvisor.com, please request one so you can update your review and admissions data here:
https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-signup
COMPLETE ENTRY
Please collate the above information in a Word document. High resolution (inspirational) photography, relevant film, PDF(s), together with any audio files, should be submitted separately with the Word file. Please also include a School Prospectus if that has been produced.
When your application is completed, these should be sent, in a single email, titled SCTSA21 VOCATIONAL with your School Name, to:
Please note: unless you specifically identify information that is confidential and sensitive and not for publication, any information sent to us may be published and become a statement of public record. It is vital therefor that information provided is accurate.
DOWNLOAD AND PRINT
Completed entries must be received no later than 7th July 2021.
#sctsa21 © SchoolsCompared.com. 2021. All rights reserved.
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