‘We Miss You’ banner posted on the boundary wall of the building. Pupils are being welcomed back after more than five months.
The Dubai British School in Jumeirah Park will welcome back 1,230 pupils on August 30. 'The National' takes a look at the Covid-19 precautionary measures taken to ensure staff and pupil safety. Campuses are beign reopened after more than five months of closure. All photos by Pawan Singh / The National
The entrance of the school will soon include thermal scanners. There are dedicated entry and exit points for primary and secondary sections.
Storage units have been placed at a distance to prevent gathering.
Tables in the canteen area are distanced by two metres.
Markings have been placed in hallways throughout the school to encourage social distancing.
A total of 130 automatic hand sanitisers have been fitted across the school.
Desks inside classrooms have been distanced and only two pupils per table will be allowed.
Posters promoting good hygiene are placed in hallways and different areas of the school.
Desks placed metres apart, thermal cameras at entrance points and gym locker rooms turned into Covid-19 isolation wards, welcome to the class of 2020.
Schools across the UAE have started to adapt classrooms and common areas in preparation for reopening on August 30, more than five months after being closed due to Covid-19.
Lesson schedules and lunchtime rotas are also being tweaked to align with physical-distancing practices.
Taaleem's Dubai British School – Jumeirah Park, will welcome back 1,230 pupils through its doors, including 150 new enrollments.
Over at the GEMS Dubai American Academy (DAA), half of the pupil population will return to classrooms and the remaining 1,300 will carry on with digital learning from home.
Entering school safely
Both schools have dedicated entrances and exits for primary and secondary sections.
Staff and pupils will be required to wear face masks while on the campus.
Thermal cameras at the British school will be fitted later this month.
Between 7.30am and 8am, parents would be able to drop their children off in person via these dedicated entry points, said Amy Falhi, head of primary.
Pupils in Year 1 and 2 will be dropped straight off to their classroom doors.
Dubai American Academy has 2,600 pupils enrolled, but only half will return to campus on August 30 as a Covid-19 precautionary measure. The remaining will continue with distance learning. All photos by Pawan Singh / The National
Anyone entering the campus from any entry point is greeted with a thermal camera.
Thermal cameras are placed in different areas of the school to monitor the temperature of pupils and staff.
Face masks are mandatory while on campus.
More than 100 automatic hand sanitisers are fitted across the school.
Stickers on the floor are placed as a reminder for physical distancing.
The arrows on the ground are meant to represent the traffic flow to prevent a crowd and encourage physical distancing while in hallways.
The stickers are being placed across the school.
This is a grade 8 classroom, where tables are kept at a distance. It is a similar scene in all other classrooms.
The gym and pool locker rooms have been transformed into a Covid-19 isolation ward. This was done by the school in the hope that it will be used as a "last resort" in case a staff member or pupil falls ill.
The isolation ward is meant to be identical to the ones in hospitals and prevents contact between the patient and people on the outside.
Only the patient and the nurse will be allowed inside the isolation ward.
Nurses wear full personal protective equipment while seeing patients.
Pupils in the primary section will be told the nurses in protective wear are "astronauts", so they "do not feel afraid" if and when getting checked.
There is a back-up isolation ward and room to build more.
Pupils that will be distance learning from home will be able to join classrooms virtually through cameras placed in each room.
For afternoon pick up, timings would be staggered for the primary section only, which has about 800 pupils.
The schedule would be split into two 20 minute slots, from 2.40pm to 3pm for the first pick up and 3.10pm to 3.30pm for the second. She said a rota would be distributed to parents and organised alphabetically so that siblings could exit the building at the same time.
At DAA, thermal cameras have already been installed at every entry and exit point.
Reducing movement on campus
Children at the British school will no longer do lesson rotations and stay in one classroom to reduce traffic flow.
An additional 10 classrooms were opened up to accommodate returning pupils and staff.
“Usually, each teacher has a classroom for their corresponding subject and pupils move from lesson to lesson but this creates a lot of movement,” said Maris Keijser, head of operations at the school.
“To reduce the amount of contact points, pupils will now stay in one classroom for the whole day and the teacher will go to them.”
Parents have been given the option to continue distance learning for their children but Brendon Fulton, executive principal at British school, said only a handful opted to continue it.
At DAA, there is capacity for more than 2,000 pupils, but the campus will bring back only half of their pupils to adhere to physical distancing.
Stickers that represent traffic flow have been placed throughout the campus to help staff and pupils move without crowding.
Pupils will be given lockers that are several metres apart and they will not be allowed to gather in hallways or near lockers as part of the precautionary measures.
Sanitisers, masks and clinics
Both schools have more than 100 automatic hand sanitiser stations fitted across the campus.
At DAA, the gym locker room has been turned into a Covid-19 isolation ward. The school hopes the room will be used only as a "last resort" if and when a staff member of pupil falls ill.
Nurses at the isolation ward will be present in full personal protective equipment (PPE).
If a person starts experiencing Covid-19 symptoms, he or she will be kept in the room and leave the campus through an exit door in the ward. This is to eliminate any possible contact with others.
Teachers will be telling the primary kids the nurses in PPE are “astronauts” so they do not “feel afraid” if they need to be checked by them.
What will classrooms look like?
Lesson capacity at the British school has been reduced from 26 pupils per class to 20 so that children can be seated 1.5 metres apart, as per the safety measures enforced by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority.
Depending on class size, Mr Keijser said one teacher and one teaching assistant would move between two rooms during lesson time.
“We wanted to keep the learning experience as normal as possible," he said.
“Due to the size of our rooms and tables, two pupils can still sit on the same desk while maintaining a safe distance.”
Over at DAA, some classrooms can have only up to 10 pupils.
Each classroom has a large television with a camera, so home-learners can tune in to the live classrooms.
Lunchtime and sports will change
Pupils in the primary section at the British school will eat lunch in their classrooms to avoid large crowds gathering in one place.
The canteen, which usually has capacity for 280 pupils was reduced to 100, and tables that once seated six people would now seat just two.
"All pupils will start off eating lunch in their classroom and once we get settled in we will slowly reintroduce the more senior pupils back into the canteen area," said Mr Keijser.
At DAA, common areas will not be accessible and lunch must be eaten only at the canteen with physical distancing in place.
In terms of changes to lessons plans, most have stayed the same, however physical education (PE) lessons would focus on non-contact sports. There would also be no swimming lessons held in both schools.
About 295,000 pupils will return to 209 private schools in Dubai in September, after schools closed in March to contain the spread of coronavirus.
This year, Taaleem, which operates 13 schools across the Emirates, will welcome more than 12,200 pupils and 1,600 staff back on campus, including 900 teachers and 300 learning assistants.
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
Results
4pm: Maiden; Dh165,000 (Dirt); 1,400m Winner: Solar Shower; William Lee (jockey); Helal Al Alawi (trainer)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Tottenham Hotspur 3 (Son 1', Kane 8' & 16') West Ham United 3 (Balbuena 82', Sanchez og 85', Lanzini 90' 4)
Man of the match Harry Kane
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Produced: Lionsgate Films, Shanghai Ryui Entertainment, Street Light Entertainment Directed: Roland Emmerich Cast: Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
Australia: Aaron Finch (c), Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, D’Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.
Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Sahibzada Farhan, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan Shinwari, Hassan Ali, Imad Wasim, Waqas Maqsood, Faheem Ashraf.
