If Dubai was mature enough to have an Ivy League school, Dubai College, established in 1978, would be first on its list.
That is not necessarily to say it has the best facilities, nor offers the “best education” (you would have to define what you meant by that), but it has been a top ranking school for so long that it is pretty much on every parents list when choosing a school. Which is often too bad – the waiting list to get in is very long indeed, and growing. The College receives between 3 and 4 applications for every place offered.
The school’s achievements are recognized by its parents who would overwhelmingly recommend it. In both 2013 and in 2015 it came in the Top 20 most recommended schools in the UAE, its recommendation rating rising from 83% to 86% over the 24 months.
School leadership has recently seen Michael Lambert take the helms as principal. Mr Lambert is clearly keen on making sure the school is well known for more than academic success, and unlike his predecessor, the venerable Peter Hill, Lambert clearly wants to embrace old or new media to promote the school in a wider context, using both to communicate his vision for education at the college and the UAE. He makes very good reading.
In total 852 students enrolled for 2014-15, slightly up on the previous year, aged from 11 to 18 years with just under half from the United Kingdom. There are 91 full-time teachers, including the Headmaster and a senior management team.
The school says it has 35 students with special educational needs – less than 5% of the student population. Improving provisions for SEN is one of the few areas recommended for improvement made by the KHDA (2014/15).
The School is located in the heart of new Dubai, in Al Sufouh, and set on nineteen acres of land. It uses the English National Curriculum, offering places to students from Year Seven (‘lower school’) up to Year Thirteen (‘Sixth Form’). Middle School students (Years Ten and Eleven) study ten GCSEs alongside a short course in ICT. Once students reach Sixth Form (provided they have achieved at least five B grades at GCSE), they will choose four subjects to study. Once they move up to Year Thirteen, students may drop one of their subjects.
In 2013, Dubai College students achieved its best GCSE and ‘A’ level results in the College’s 36 year history. At ‘A’ level, its A*/A rate of 74.2% placed the College in 23rd place in The Daily Telegraph table of high performing UK Independent Schools. Perhaps from that high, a drop in 2014 was inevitable, although in 2015 DC moved one step higher to 22nd. Results are remarkably consistent – and always top end. For 2015 67.2% of A Level results were A*-A, 97.1% A* to C, and 100% A* to E. At GCSE, 79.3% were A* to A, 99.7% A* to C, and 100% A* to E.
Those GCSE results put it in line with the 12th best co-educational independent school and the 3rd best co-educational state school in the UK.
No comments:
Post a Comment