Lycée Francais International Georges Pompidou, Dubai Academic City, Al Ruwayyah – The Review

Updated August 2019 – Lycée Francais International Georges Pompidou context and KHDA 2019

KHDA Outstanding, with fees around half those of its competing equivalent Tier 1 English and IB peers, Lycée Francais International Georges Pompidou (LFIGP) is a school that is hard to find fault with. The parent school, based in Sharjah, and established in 1973, it should be noted, is equally as impressive.

In Dubai, LFIGP provision is split between what are, to all intents and purposes, two campuses. The Oud Metha school, offers an FS1-2 Maternelle education to children between the ages of 3 and 6 years, and acts as the slipstream to the main Primary and Secondary school in Dubai Academic City. The DAC campus/school completes each childs education, offering all-through provision from Grade 1 – Grade 12 for children between 6 and 18 years of age.

All schools follow the French curriculum in all phases, from La Maternelle, through the Le Diplôme National du Brevet (DNB) and, finally, the Baccalauréat Français(informally the “Bac”), this offered in all three individual Literary, Social Sciences & Economics – and dedicated Science streams.

The school competes for offering the very best education anywhere in the Emirates. Delivery is outstanding in almost every area:

• Outstanding language development – with a majority of tri-lingual learners
• Outstanding academic performance in all core subjects at all phases
• Outstanding student personal and whole child development
• Outstanding teaching at every phase
• Outstanding school leadership
• The lowest teacher turnover rate in the Emirates at just 2%
• Outstanding communications and engagement with parents

Only in Arabic core subject areas, and Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision does performance drop – but just a notch. Even in these areas the school is competitive with the best international schools.

With fees running shy of 30,00 AED for FS phases (at the Oud Metha Lycee Francais International Georges Pompidou Primary Oud Metha) to just 48,093 AED at the main campus in DAC, the Lycée Francais International Georges Pompidouoffers the best value of any school in the Emirates.

 

Parents seeking a French education for their children in Dubai are spoiled for choice. The alternative Lycée Libanais Francophone Privé-Dubai in Al Muhaisnah 4 is also a very special school, this offering a Lebanese twist to its curriculum.

Our sister site, WhichSchoolAdvisor.com, has had more limited feedback for the school than usual, this probably because it is a language school. What has been received has been uniformly positive. On this note, we would be very grateful if students, teachers and/or parents of the school could feedback to us. We rigorously protect the sources of information that we receive and such feedback is critical to our ability to independently guide choices for parents. You could make a difference.

Without qualification, the Lycée Francais International Georges Pompidou is a school that prospective parents of a French education should shortlist – without worrying that it will be wasted opportunity. More than this, however, it is the hidden gem of the UAE for all parents who are able to look beyond the horizons of British, IB, American or Indian systems that they have might have thought the only options. It’s a big world …..