New school in Al Ain achieves ‘outstanding’ ranking during inspections

Brighton College Al Ain, an English National Curriculum school that opened in 2013 and teaches 617 pupils, is now among only five across the emirate to hold the elite “outstanding” status.

Amity International School in Al Bahia, Abu Dhabi, achieved a ‘good’ rating in the inspections. Mona Al Marzooqi / The National

AL AIN // Pupils and staff at one of the newest schools in Al Ain are celebrating after earning the highest ranking in annual inspections – a first for the city.

Brighton College Al Ain, an English curriculum school that opened in 2013 and teaches 617 pupils, is one of only five in the emirate to be recognised with a ranking of “outstanding”.

The results of April’s inspection were recently published by the Abu Dhabi Education Council.

“We’re very proud of it,” said Annie Leggett, the school’s admissions and administration manager. “The parents were as thrilled as we were all about the report. I think they feel very good that their children are at the school.”

Adec also posted inspection reports for 24 other schools that were audited in the third term of the last academic year.

Of these, two were “very good” – Gems World Academy Abu Dhabi and the German International School.

Seven schools were ranked “good”, 10 “acceptable”, four “weak”, and one “very weak”. Online links to two other schools were broken.

ABC Private School, a new English curriculum school that opened last year and has 1,458 pupils, was the only one to be graded as very weak, the lowest ranking, in the inspection.

Inspectors said it was very weak in each of the performance standards against which all schools are judged: pupils’ achievement; pupils’ personal and social development, pupils’ innovation skills; teaching and assessment; curriculum; the protection, care, guidance and support of pupils and leadership and management. Calls made to the school yesterday were not answered.

ABC Private School was one of 11 schools that opened last year and were inspected for the first time in April and May.

In Dubai, private schools are not inspected during their first two years of operation.

Afaf Rady Ghanem, academic adviser for Elite Private School, which used to be a villa school but was inspected as a new school because it moved to upgraded school premises and replaced its staff, said working out the kinks during an inspection had been a challenge.

Its weak rating came as a surprise but inspectors’ suggestions for improvements were welcomed, said Mrs Rady Ghanem, who joined the school five months ago as part of a team to raise its standards.

“If anyone gives us pointers on how to improve or gives us any way to be better, we welcome them,” she said. “We need to work on this. We’re focused, we won’t stop. We are looking for ‘outstanding’. You will see, inshallah. We have a vision to be an ‘outstanding’ school.”

Adec said it inspected 112 of the 186 schools in operation during the 2015-2016 academic year.

This year, reports for 43 schools inspected between September and December and 42 schools audited between January and March were released.

Adec is expected to issue a statement summarising the findings of the school inspections shortly.