Best International Baccalaureate Blended Curriculum School – The Finalists 2023 – 2024
The following schools are our Top 5 Schools for the 2023 – 24 SchoolsCompared.com Best International Baccalaureate Blended Curriculum School Award for their academic and whole child education of children in the UAE.
All the finalist 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.
Finally, we have looked across all areas of provision, investment, innovation and achievement that support each school being shortlisted.
In key respects, if you want to find innovation in UAE education, you will find it in understanding and appreciating what is taking place in this sector arguably above all others.
You can read about our criteria for what makes an Outstanding Blended Curriculum IB School here.
Our Top 5 Finalists
The Top Schools Awards 2023 – 2024
Deira International School Dubai
“Extraordinary, life-affirming, KHDA (April 2023) and BSO (2021-2024) ranked Outstanding school (April 2023) led by one of the best Principals in the UAE, Deira International School goes from strength to strength delivering an astonishingly good British /International Baccalaureate education hitting each part of the equation that matters – whole child, academic, innovation, creativity and “heart.” This is a school that sparkles with best intentions – and delivers on them in spades – and more some. In its combination of outstanding curriculum provision, world-class leadership, not-for-profit ideals, outstanding plus academic achievement of children, and extraordinary and life-affirming whole child development, it’s a school more than worthy of parents’ attention when seeking the perfect IB school. And it’s a happy school too, whilst one intently focused on making each child’s curiosity burst into life and build a bridge to their future. All of these “above and beyond” aspects of its Outstanding-plus education for students really do matter and are the absolute treasures of so few schools.”
Deira International School Dubai – review here, and here.
GEMS Wellington Academy Silicon Oasis
“For subject breadth and opportunity, the offer here defines best-in-class. Why does it matter? When a little one joins a school no one can be sure where their passions, potential, ambitions and talents will take them. A school that closes off options, closes off the life chances of a child. At GEMS Wellington Academy, the seas are open and the journeys of discovery open to children as they progress through the school cover every conceivable British and IB curriculum alternative. Post-16 provision extends across from both the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and the International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme, to technical stream subject breadth at BTEC, and gold standard British A-Level. In an extraordinary twist, the Programmes can also be blended together to combine BTEC, A Level and IB courses. It’s probably fair to say that the heart of the school is British, with the UK curriculum the standard through EYFS to GCSE – but the influence of the IB, in the critical, innovation-inspiring ways students are encouraged to explore learning, can be felt from the very point children first join the school. Leadership is stellar, both deeply humane and compassionate, and the school is a powerhouse of learning in a culture committed to the individual needs, and happiness, of every child. The result is a school in which parents never have to face moving their children to meet their needs – nor do they ever want to, such is the beyond-outstanding level of care, whole child investment, child progress and academics.”
GEMS Wellington Academy Silicon Oasis – review here, and here.
Jumeirah English Speaking School (JESS) – Arabian Ranches
“Multi award-winning JESS is undoubtedly one of the most respected schools for the International Baccalaureate in Dubai with a reputation that stretches across the Emirates, and globally, for the outstanding quality of its provision for students, whole child and academic, and its expertise in technology and the cutting edge of developments in Science and industry. The school is resolutely not-for-profit and inclusive, although you would not know it from the stellar success of its students in examinations. It is this play between inclusion, progress and attainment that has won the hearts and minds of both students and parents alike – and the commitment is genuine, with the school’s unwavering promise that every child will find their place at JESS and every child be the best that they can be – and more. Despite many changes to leadership in recent years, this core commitment to individualised achievement and inclusion continues to set the school apart. Whole child commitment is seriously impressive, and student achievement in Sport, in particular, place it regularly in the best schools for Sport in the Emirates. JESS has also creditably been a pioneer in technical stream education, recognising the value of BTEC when many of its peers turned up their noses. That belief in technical stream education has proven to be visionary, as increasingly industry and universities treat BTEC with the seriousness it undoubtedly deserves. AT JESS, Level 3 BTECs in broad range of subjects can be combined with gold standard A’ Levels if that best meets the needs, potential, talents and aspirations of the child. The achievements of students sitting for both the IB Diploma and Career-related programme are not short of spectacular, highlighting just how good the teaching and value-add is at a school that still refuses to get hung up on league tables despite its success. The philosophy remains one that judges children on their own terms and refuses the annual rush to get hung up on results which give only a small part of the story of what makes an outstanding education. Facilities are some of the very best of any school in Dubai and the school is regularly seen as an impressive alternative too for academic children seeking an alternative to DC.”
Jumeirah English Speaking School (JESS) – Arabian Ranches – review here and here.
Nord Anglia International School Dubai
“We think that this is the definitive Nord Anglia School worldwide – it is absolutely outstanding. A school known historically for its beyond passionate love of the IB, and a delivery of the Diploma second-to-none, Nord Anglia Dubai won heart and minds for its courage in diversifying its offer to include alternative gold-standard A levels. In doing so it signalled its absolute care for its students and commitment, whatever the cost, to ensure that no child at Nord Anglia International School Dubai is ever left behind – or does not find a qualification or subject pathway able to light their path to achieving beyond every possible ambition. Whole child provision in the Arts is a phenomenon – you never forget a performance by a Nord Anglia Dubai child or group of children. Never. This is a school that has played a pivotal role in the evolution of education, and the expectations for education, in the UAE – and it is all the more remarkable that it has done so in such a relatively short time. It is impossible to imagine Dubai education without it.”
Nord Anglia International School Dubai – review here and here.
Sunmarke School
“If there was an Award for the school that continuously innovates and invests in children through the diversification and expansion of its curriculum pathways, it would be impossible to not feature Sunmarke. Where, for other schools, offering a second qualification pathway often takes years, when Sunmarke decides to do it, because the children need it, it happens – and really quickly. As a result, historically, it became increasingly difficult to understand where to position Sunmarke. Today Sunmarke has found stability and a home with an elite, but growing number of schools, that, albeit in often radically different ways, offer one or both IB Programmes with the British, Indian or American curriculum. Sunmarke offers the British curriculum until students are sixteen, with EYFS and Primary leading to GCSE and Level 2 BTEC. Post-16, the school delivers every conceivable pathway, this extending from the International Baccalaureate Diploma, International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme, and IB Courses options through to a richly populated British technical stream pathway founded on BTEC and gold standard A Levels. IB courses, BTEC and A Level programmes can also be blended. Certainly Sunmarke deserves credit for pioneering what seems to be increasingly setting a standard for what constitutes “Outstanding” in Post-16 education. Delivering a technical stream and academic stream in either the British or IB curriculum no longer seems sufficient. It’s fair to say, however, that Sunmarke is not your typical IB, or British school. The school over-codes both the IB and British curriculum with STEAM, Environmental Sciences and the philosophical and pedagogical metrics of Positive Education, which it effectively transferred from its founding home in Australia to the Middle East. The result is a whirlwind of innovation, hugely happy school dynamics and a school that genuinely surprises you at every turn whether that’s in the extraordinary quality and innovation evident in lessons and teaching, to a quite humbling compassion for the underdog and making a difference in the world. This is a rare school that uses curricular like a toolbox and adds whatever else comes along that makes education better for its children. This is a school that itself, in its very organisation, creativity, innovation and methodology, practices almost everything that the IB labels important. Maybe that is exactly the impact of a truly blended IB curriculum school…. Whatever the answer, the education on offer for children here is inclusive, meaningful, successful, inspirational and, absolutely, outstanding.”
Sunmarke School – 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