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The Top Schools Award for Best School in the United Arab Emirates for Technical and Vocational Stream Education. Top Schools Awards 2023 Nomination and Entry Forms.

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The Top Schools Award for Best School in the United Arab Emirates for Technical and Vocational Stream Education. Top Schools Awards 2023 Nomination and Entry Forms.

Top Schools Awards 2023 nomination forms. The Best School in the UAE for technical and vocational stream education including for BTEC and the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme. Picture young girl and aspiring engineer from Amity International School Abu Dhabi during first phase testing of a Jet Pack specially produced for the TSA.

by Jon WestleyDecember 20, 2022

Below is the official entry form for the Top Schools Award in the United Arab Emirates for Technical and Vocational Stream Education 2023-24, our award recognising schools offering the most outstanding breadth and quality of technical subject and qualification pathways in the region and its/their positive impact on the lives of children. This award is open to all schools offering technical stream qualification pathways in BTEC and/or the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme, as well as schools offering equivalent and equally weighted alternative vocational and technical stream pathways which are celebrated and clearly distinguished from their theoretical/academic stream counterparts.

The world is profoundly changing in the way it views qualification pathways – and in so many ways it is now a far more enlightened one. There is no longer a one-size, catch-all approach by employers or universities. The importance of creativity, innovation, cross-subject expertise and “soft” skills are increasingly placed centre-stage drivers of productivity by and in industry. Hands-on experience and the application of knowledge have never been more highly valued – and demanded earlier, as industry calls for qualifications mapped to their real world needs rather than theory. More students globally now remain in schools longer, and university entry is increasingly being democratised. New pathways to enter industry more swiftly are being invented including degree apprenticeships. New post-16 pathways are being invented/re-invented, including in British education, with T Levels and, in both British and IB education, an ever expanding universe of direct, industry-related BTEC and other industry “meaningful” qualifications created to fast-track students into the workforce. Medicine, Accountancy and Law now compete with any number of new industry qualifications less focused on academic pathways than STEAM and technical stream subject experience, its blending and its application. From F1 racing to pure Engineering and Aviation, and from Gaming to specialised Sports, the expansive range of BTEC technical pathway subject options has shown significantly more radical investment and growth in recent years than its academic counterpart qualification pathways. An example? For those who say that it is not possible to innovate in academic pathways, because they are somehow fixed, why have we not see an evolution of joint A Levels in for example, Psychology and Mathematics, or Economics and Politics?

As technical and vocational education becomes ever more cutting edge, what has not changed is the importance of recognising the difference between all of us, whether as children, older students or adults. There is no one right course in life, and no path has an inalienable timeless right to be defined as better in any absolute sense. No parent can be certain that their son or daughter will be more academic, technical, sporty, artistic, musical – or even whether ultimately our children will grow up to be more outgoing, thoughtful, industrious, articulate, sensitive, inventive, introverted or any other of the different qualities that are all needed to make a better and certainly much more interesting world. That means we need schools that offer the broadest range of the highest quality qualification pathways, and breadth of subject options, to ensure that every child, as he or shew grows and develops within a school, will find choices that meet their potential, gifts, ambition, and skills whatever they may be. No parent should be faced with having to move their child from a school because those options are not available, or find their child squashed into a box to become something they are not and lose what could have been.

For this Award then, we are looking then for a school that delivers and celebrates technical and vocation stream options for every young man and woman that requires them, and exceptionally well. It is a school that inspires young men and women with a recognised and valued post-16 technical and vocational education offer that leaves as many pathways open to them as possible; one that recognises each child has a different and equally important and inspiring journey to celebrate. It is a school that sparkles with imagination and ambition for all their older students, one with a warmth that engenders the passion of teachers and the adoration of children and parents alike. And, finally, a school that ensures that every graduating student finds a slipstream home as they leave school to start the next chapter of their lives, each empowered with the values and confidence to make a positive impact in the world before them.

For Schools

The Top Schools Award for Best School in the UAE for Technical and Vocational Stream Education 2023-24 – schools please download application here.

For Parents, Governors, Teachers and Students

Parents, teachers, governors and students – we want to hear from you! If you believe that the technical and vocational education offered by your school is outstanding – and one which has made a profoundly positive and inspirational impact on its children, please contact us with your answer to the following. “I would like to nominate X school [name of school] for its technical and vocation education because …. ” Please email us at [email protected]. You can write as little or as much as you wish, and please include photographs if possible. Please give do your best to bring to life for us the impact the school’s technical and vocational education has had on you and/or children in your email.

The Top Schools Awards 2023-24

Top Schools Awards 2023 The STEAM Years

This year, the Top Schools Awards are celebrating outstanding achievement in our schools with a particular focus on how schools inspire children by linking all subject areas to bring the extraordinary wonders of the Arts, creativity, imagination – and freedom to experiment and innovate, into all areas of the curriculum including, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

We believe, passionately, that the Arts are absolutely fundamental to delivering an outstanding education for every child, one focused on the whole child and the gifts all children have to change the world for the better and make the difference – every day, and in the future. The Arts bring STEM to life.

Rocket Girl – the Arts and Sciences, together, brought to life

Pictured young girl from Amity International School Abu Dhabi courageously testing a jet pack specially manufactured for the Top Schools Awards as part of a campaign to inspire children in STEM and STEAM.

In November 2023, members of the TSA Space and Rocket programme completed first phase testing of the Imagination^TMpowered Jet Pack specially manufactured for this year’s STEAM focused Awards. We visited a number of the region’s most outstanding schools. We are particularly grateful for the assistance of the extraordinary and accredited Rocket Pilot and Space Girl Wiktoria from Amity International School Abu Dhabi(pictured) for her considerable, and quite, totally, awesome, bravery and kindness in completing Year 6 rocket pack inaugural flight testing.