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In our British Primary School in Dubai, students aged 5 to 11 build strong foundations in reading, writing, maths and life skills. Through the English National Curriculum, taught by experienced teachers who know how each child learns best, students grow in confidence and begin to lead their own learning.
Small classes
Classes here are small enough that every child gets heard. Teachers adapt how they explain things, and inclusive strategies mean support is there when a child needs it, and extra challenge when they are ready for it.
Enhanced British curriculum
We follow the National Curriculum for England and add to it: digital fluency, music and STEAM. It is the groundwork that IGCSEs, BTECs and A Levels are built on later.
Cross-curricular teaching
Geography, History, Music, Art and PSHE are planned in themed units, so pupils can see how one subject connects to another. The work has a point to it, and children tend to enjoy it more.Primary students learn some subjects (Geography, History, Music, Art and PSHE) through thematically planned lessons and activities to encourage practical applications, critical thinking and creativity. It provides contextual learning which is both informational and fun.
Skills for life
Students actively develop life skills through cross-curricular projects, discussions and hands-on activities that encourage them to question, explore and think independently.
Self and peer assessment
Pupils look at their own work critically and give each other feedback. It puts them in charge of getting better at something.Students actively refine their work through self-reflection and peer assessment, taking charge of their progress and continually striving for improvement.
Leadership opportunities
Head Boy and Head Girl, House Captains, Ambassadors and Sports Leaders are real jobs with real responsibility, and pupils grow into them.
Beyond the classroom
Over 60 extracurricular activities cover sport, the arts, STEAM, robotics, community service and leadership. Plenty happens after the last bell.
Bilingual and multilingual
English as an Additional Language support runs alongside Arabic for pupils who need it, with interactive teaching and guided discussion. We also encourage families to keep their home language going, and we make room to celebrate it.
Our own primary campus
The Al Twar 2 campus has a sound-proofed music room, a STEAM room, a library, a multipurpose hall, outdoor play areas and an Inclusion Room. Classrooms are fitted with interactive whiteboards, and across the school pupils work in ICT labs and an Apple Mac suite, STEAM labs and workshops and a Design and Technology lab, using industry-standard software and tools. At our school, Dubai families sit alongside families who travel in from Sharjah.
A friendly admissions process
The process is straightforward and personal, with support in several languages for families arriving from overseas.
Most children come up to Year 1 from our Early Years Foundation Stage, and others join us from elsewhere. From there the primary stage of the National Curriculum for England runs in two phases, known formally as Key Stage 1 and 2. Each phase has a different emphasis, and children move from one to the other without changing school, teachers or expectations.
Reading comes first. Systematic phonics, early number work and a lot of talking build the foundations. Most of the day is thematic, so reading, writing and number get practised inside subjects the class finds interesting.
Subject knowledge goes deeper and pupils work more independently. Writing gets longer, mathematics moves towards reasoning and multi-step problems, French starts in Year 5, and Year 6 is largely spent getting ready for Year 7.Students spend two years working towards internationally recognised qualifications in subjects they chose themselves. The work gets deeper and more independent, and it is built to prepare them for A Levels, BTECs, or whatever comes after.
As a British curriculum school we teach three core subjects, with a set of foundation subjects built around them.
Reading, writing, speaking and listeningEnglish is taught every day and it runs through everything else. Systematic phonics gives younger pupils the code they need to read on their own. After that we work on vocabulary, comprehension and building an appetite for books. Writing starts with sentences and grows into longer pieces across fiction, non-fiction and poetry, with grammar, punctuation and spelling taught directly. Speaking and listening get their own time too: in pairs, in small groups, and in front of the whole school at assembly.
Fluency, reasoning and real problemsPupils build fluency in number first, covering recognition, the four operations, fractions and place value. That then gets applied to shape, measurement, position and early geometry. Reasoning matters as much as the answer, because a child who can explain a method can use it again somewhere else. Practical work such as handling money, measuring and reading data runs through every year group.
Enquiry, evidence and curiosityScience is taught as an investigative subject. Pupils cover living things, materials and their properties, forces, light, sound, electricity and space. What we spend most time on is how we know any of it. They ask a question, predict what will happen, test it, record what they see and explain the result. Primary is a good age to start learning what evidence actually is.
History, Geography and CultureTopic pulls History, Geography and cultural study into themed units. Pupils dig into the past, read maps, compare places and think about how communities work. The research and thinking skills feed straight into humanities subjects later on.
Rhythm, melody and performanceMusic happens in a sound-proofed room on campus and covers singing, playing instruments, listening and composition. Pupils hear a wide range of genres and traditions, and they perform for their families and for each other.
Colour, texture and creative confidenceArt gives children a visual language: drawing, painting, sculpture and digital work. They look at artists and movements, play with colour, texture and design, and build the fine motor control that also helps their handwriting.
Confident, responsible technology usePupils learn to use computers and software for something: researching, making, presenting, solving a problem. Online safety and digital citizenship are taught alongside. Our STEAM room takes this further into robotics and design.
Fitness, teamwork and healthy habitsPE builds coordination, strength and stamina through team games and individual sport. It also teaches fair play, and how to lose well. It links to a wide extracurricular sports programme and to inter-school competition through DASSA.
A requirement of every school in the UAEUAE Ministry of Education regulations mean every Dubai school teaches Arabic, and that Muslim pupils study Islamic Studies. Our Arabic specialists teach both native and non-native speakers. Moral, Citizenship and Social Studies covers responsible citizenship and the UAE’s history, heritage and place in the world. Between them, these subjects root an international education in the country the class is growing up in.
Every ISP school works on the same five pillars. They set out what we want a young person to leave with, which is broader than a list of things they know. Ours is an international primary school in Dubai, so the global part of this is not decoration.
Academic achievement
Teaching is adapted so that every child can meet a high expectation.
Life competencies
Respect, integrity, inclusion, collaboration and excellence are the values behind how we teach.
Multilingualism
International education is in this school’s DNA. Pupils get EAL support in English, are held to a high standard in Arabic
International opportunities
Over 26,000 ISP students take part in International Learning Opportunities every year.
Teaching is adapted so that every child can meet a high expectation. Ongoing assessment tells teachers what a pupil needs next, and support or extension follows from it. Across the ISP network, 93% of school leavers reach their first-choice destination. ISP’s Learning Improvement Process, LIP™, is the nine-criteria framework that keeps that consistent from one school to the next.
Respect, integrity, inclusion, collaboration and excellence are the values behind how we teach. Project work, teamwork and leadership roles build communication and problem-solving. Character education and digital citizenship get taught directly, because pupils do not pick them up by accident.
International education is in this school’s DNA. Pupils get EAL support in English, are held to a high standard in Arabic, start French in Year 5, and are encouraged to keep growing in whatever they speak at home. Across ISP, 83% of pupils master a second language before they leave school.
Over 26,000 ISP students take part in International Learning Opportunities every year. Ours join the eight-week Virtual Buddy Exchange, the ISP Maths and English challenges, the ISP Film Festival and the global chess tournament. It is real work alongside children on other continents, not a pen-pal exercise.
How we measure attainment
We assess to work out what to teach next, not to rank children. Each measure below exists to tell a teacher something useful, and to give families a straight answer about how their son or daughter is doing.
Moving up to Year 7
Year 6 to Year 7 should feel like a step up, not a leap. Through Year 6, pupils go over to our secondary campus in Al Twar 4 every Friday for specialist Science and ICT teaching, with subject teachers, in subject rooms.
By September they know the building, the routines and a few of the adults. Because families stay with us from Year 1 to Year 13, all of this happens inside one community.
Students are supported by well-trained learning support assistants particularly in Primary.
KHDA Inspection Report, (2023-24)
We take applications through the year for Years 1 to 6, subject to availability. Choosing a British primary school in Dubai is easier to do in person, so the useful first step is a campus tour.
Primary School runs from age 5 to 11, covering Year 1 through Year 6. This stage builds directly on Early Years and sets kids up for the jump into Secondary. Classes stay small, so teachers can actually keep track of how each student is doing rather than just moving through a fixed lesson plan.
Primary students follow a broad and balanced curriculum that includes:
This curriculum develops academic knowledge while encouraging creativity, critical thinking and global awareness.
The school uses a mix of methods. GL Assessments check English, Maths and Science against standardised benchmarks. NGRT tests reading three times a year. On top of that, teachers run ongoing formative checks through quizzes and discussions, end-of-unit assessments, and early phonics screening to catch reading gaps before they grow into bigger problems.
Primary students learn in classrooms fitted with interactive whiteboards, ICT labs and Apple Mac suites, plus a STEAM lab and Design and Technology space for hands-on projects. Lessons in subjects like Geography, History and Art are planned thematically, so students connect ideas across subjects instead of treating each one as separate.
The transition from Year 6 to Year 7 doesn't happen overnight. Students visit the secondary campus every Friday for specialist Science and ICT lessons, which gets them used to a different building, different teachers and a slightly different pace. By the time September rolls around, most students walk into Year 7 already feeling at home.Watch the video to see how our students experience this transition and settle confidently into secondary school.
Build a strong foundation of knowledge and life skills with Star, Al Twar’s primary programme. Our Admissions team would be glad to hear from you.
Discover a caring British school community guiding stars to bright futures.
