Best International Baccalaureate School – The Finalists 2023 – 2024
The following schools have all achieved short-listing for the 2023 – 2024 SchoolsCompared.com Best International Baccalaureate School Award for their academic and whole child education of children in the UAE.
All the schools listed, in different ways, provide outstanding breadth of academic, technical and ECA options for students to ensure that every child can meet his or her individual ambitions, potential, and ability.
Each of them endeavours to provide added value to each child’s journey to ensure that every student leaves school meeting or exceeding baseline academic and whole child expectations.
When we have looked at schools, we have weighted those that plough back investment into facilities, teacher salaries, resources and school improvements year-on-year to improve education for children.
All of the schools shortlisted endeavour to deliver a benchmark for the best education for children, available in the UAE.
All of the following schools are “pure” IB, generally “IB World” schools, offering the IB across, at least, IB PYP, MYP and Diploma phases of education. Many offer, or are accredited to offer, all four international Baccalaureate programmes including the, in our view, stand-out International Baccalaureate Careers-related Programme. These are all schools that are passionate about the IB – and the IB exclusively.
There are many other, “in part” IB schools, that offer a choice of the International Baccalaureate, particularly Post-16, with alternative curriculum qualification pathways which are not included here, but which are recognised in other categories. For example, many would see Nord Anglia International School Dubai as a flagship IB school. However, Nord Anglia International School Dubai sees itself as a British school at heart – and is also one that offers a choice between both IB and A Level qualification pathways. So too, GEMS Modern Academy has real strength in its IB offer, but in our view this is outshone by its extraordinary achievements in delivering the Indian curriculum to the majority of students. In each of these examples its not being included here is in no way meant to indicate that these, and schools like them, do not offer an outstanding IB education to those students who access this pathway. Many schools believe passionately in the IB – but in conjunction with alternative curriculum pathways, particularly in the Early and Middle Years.
We have also looked at the basic metrics of wellbeing – all schools here invest in, and believe in, wellbeing – and the happiness of children. The latter, depending on the school culture and dynamics, is not always easy to achieve – but all of these schools have the systems in place to respond to the wellbeing needs of children in the context of the need of their own role, school culture and purpose.
With different schools, particular strengths in one or more area have been used to allow for our subjective perception of weaknesses in others.
Finally, we have looked across all areas of provision, investment, innovation and achievement that support each school being shortlisted.
You can learn more about our criteria here.
Our Top 5 Finalists
The Top Schools Awards 2023 – 2024
Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills
“You cannot understand an Innoventures School without appreciating the extraordinary impact of its founder Poonam Bhojani. From her, every Innoventures School, regardless of its curriculum, gets an investment in leaders and faculty that is never less than inspirational. DIA Emirates Hills is no exception, and teaching and leadership here are second-to-none. There is an understanding here that the quality of teachers matters more than a million baubles or 50M pools. Despite perceptions of many parents, particularly given the exactness of the IB structure, all IB schools are not the same and DIA Emirates Hills sets the IB alight with the passion of its delivery by teachers, and the deep commitment of the whole school to the happiness and welfare of children. Both so matter, particular in the stretch of the Diploma. But the wider impact of this extraordinary investment in children and young people is the understanding here that creativity and innovation, the absolute core of what the IB is seeking to achieve, depend on children having the freedom, confidence, security and happiness to think and construct the world without needing to worry about anything. Care for children runs very deep. The longest established IB continuum school in the Emirates then builds on this with a whole child programme so big you simply run out of space to count the number of opportunities available to each child. This is a school that believes in the IB without qualification in its ambitions to give every child the ability to be so much more than the sum of academic results. DIA students are risk takers, explorers and innovators, just as they are caring, principled and outward-looking. Here the focus is on a world bigger than the sum of its parts and one much bigger than the solitary child. A community has been created here, one brimming with, inclusion, child happiness and achievement – both academic and whole child. It’s something to behold.”
Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills – review here and here.
GEMS International School Al Khail
“GEMS International School Al Khail is a truly pioneering IB School, one that has won accolades for the richness of its aeronautical, aviation and STEAM pathways, qualification pathways you simply cannot find anywhere else in an alternative UAE school. For aspiring young pilots, aviation engineers and astronauts this is as close as it gets to perfect in a school as you’ll find. As with all our finalist schools, the calibre of leadership and teaching faculty here is outstanding and found a school that fires on every cylinder – and more – for all children. And that is the real key here; all children – this is a deeply humane and inclusive school that welcomes children of every talent – and meets those talents with some of the most innovative, inspirational and meaningful pathways we have seen in any UAE school. The ambition for children is boundless, this reflected in this being the only GEMS IB School with four pathways to ensure than no child is left behind – and every child succeeds. We have always rated the IB Career-related Programme very, very highly – and there are strong arguments that it represents the future of education. Here that programme is delivered with a breadth of subject options that takes the breath away. The headline is of course the four Embry Riddel Aeronautical Programmes, but you’ll also find Business, (phenomenally good) Creative Media and Sport options. This is before you even get to the Diploma, delivered here with all the richness of academic study and breadth of options you won’t better in other IB schools. Add a monumental commitment to, and investment in, wellbeing and child happiness, an ethics of humanity that shows itself across every corner of school life, beyond outstanding school leadership, and outstanding whole child provision, and this is a school that stands apart. Many say this is the GEMS IB school, and it’s easy to see why. GEMS has thrown everything at this school to build a giant in inclusive IB education and the result is no less than a tour de force.
GEMS International School Al Khail – review here and here.
Greenfield International School
“You cannot think about the IB in Dubai without a nod to the school that has played such a pivotal and historic role in establishing the IB, and an IB continuum education, in the Emirates. We have always credited the school with its particular role in establishing the value of the Career-related Programme with regulators, parents and students alike. For us, the IB Career-related Programme is the crown jewels of IB qualifications, combing all the best of the IB whole child programmes with the ability to specialise in a depth of technical area study that you associate much more commonly with British alternative A levels. It’s also the only IB programme that does not discriminate against those who are not natural linguists. Established in 2007, Greenfield has had the time to understand, live and breathe the IB – and its breadth of qualification pathways ensures that it meets the needs, potential and aspirations of every child. It may have lost community in its title, presumably because of Taaleem’s push to professionalise it’s school naming, but this remains a community school, albeit one with extraordinary levels of investment by Taaleem to match the status of its flagship IB school. Those community dynamics deliver a warmth and commitment to the individual child that adds a softness to IB delivery that too easily falls victims to the hothouse. As a Taaleem school, this is an inclusive one with rigorous commitment to child welfare and wellbeing – but it is also one that pushes hard on achievement and results.”
Greenfield International School – review here and here
Raha International School Gardens Campus
RIS Gardens is one of only two IB Continuum World School in the capital, and arguably Taaleem’s flagship IB school. It’s also one with new and significant investment in its sister school, only minutes, away, to manage quite extraordinary demand for places. Until last year, the school benefitted from the enduring leadership of the hugely respect Iain Colledge, widely credited with shaping the outstanding school RIS Garden undoubtedly is today. If there is a gap it’s in the lack of the Careers-related Programme, this in no small part due to later acceptance of technical education by regulators in Abu Dhabi. With technical education now given equivalent weight by regulators we think that Taaleem should be putting this right. After all, it played an historic role in delivering the Careers-related Programme in Dubai. Beyond this, this is an extraordinarily well resourced, beautiful school. Students want for nothing. Investment in teachers is significant and this feels exactly like an IB school should – an oasis of creativity, hope, inspiration and innovation, driven by students who are given the support to question everything and find solutions. In a world that could sorely do with some meaningful answers, the quality of IB education showcased here gives all its students the tools to provide them. Results too are outstanding for an inclusive IB school.”
Raha International School Gardens Campus – review here and here
Swiss International Scientific School Dubai
“One of the most ambitious school launches in the UAE for a decade, the aspiration to deliver a cutting edge, Tier 1 premium, Swiss education in the heart of the UAE, one that would compete with the best of Swiss Schools (the most expensive in the world) on their own terms, was, for many, mind boggling. When the plans were announced, it’s fair to say there were plenty of detractors, not because of the ambition, but simply because the belief was that the ambition would never be met. However, it’s fair to say that from Day One the critics were pretty much silenced – the investment in this school to make sure it delivers is almost unmatched. Everything is here to deliver a world class IB education. Add an exceptionally strong boarding offer, attracting children from across the emirates, and this is a school that is mapping its own destiny without any easy comparisons.
For us, the school became an outstanding one when it introduced the Career-programme and developed its expertise in Hospitality in a very clever move to build links between a key Swiss industry and the UAE. In turn,a school operating in a richly inclusive culture of education became one able to meet in full the needs of all its students. A second option in business will hopefully meet a third, and then fourth…, technical stream options in the years to come.
The impacts of ever growing commitment to child welfare and happiness is showing dividends – today SISSD is a very different school to the one that opened – warmth abounds, and creativity and innovation flourishes. It’s inevitable perhaps with all schools, as a culture develops and there is less worry about adhering rigidly to structures, generally to avoid the risk of error, that schools find their true voice. That voice today has surrounded its children with extraordinary levels of investment, world class teachers, a huge level of ambition, and a commitment to care that now spreads to its qualification and subject pathways.
SISSD today stand alone in its own unique space, building an IB powerhouse school with no small amount of courage and very few manuals. That alone makes it stand out and deserve to be supported. In a way this is a twist on IB schooling that in its inherent innovation in landing here in the UAE celebrates the IB by simply existing. That it does so today with very significant ongoing investment, innovation and care for its students makes this a school that may well have an impact in the years to come way beyond the walls of its buildings.”
Swiss International Scientific School Dubai – review here and here.
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Wow.. Congrats to all winners. In my opinion, American Gulf School in Sharjah is also suitable to be in the first top American schools. https://www.ags.ae/en