Citizens School, Dubai

Citizens School is led by Principal David Lees, a senior educator from Suffolk and Essex with over two decades of leadership experience, including roles as Headteacher, Governor, Chief Operating Officer, and Executive Principal. Appointed on 15 April 2024, initially as Head of Secondary before assuming the principalship, Lees brings a clear vision centred on adaptive, personalised learning connected to the real world. His tenure is relatively recent, and the school's first full KHDA inspection — conducted in April 2025 — represents an important early milestone for his leadership at Citizens.

The senior leadership team is notably broad for a school of this size. Alongside the principal, the team includes Vice Principal and Head of Secondary Donal O'Callaghan, Vice Principal and Head of Primary Nagham Naamani — who brings over 24 years of educational experience — and Vice Principal of Inclusion, Well-Being and Safeguarding Dialla Mustapha, who holds a Master of Education and a Certificate in School Management and Leadership from Harvard University. Governance sits with a Board of Governors under Founder and Chairman Dr. Adil Alzarooni and CEO Hisham Hodroge of Al Zarooni Emirates Investments. KHDA rated governance Good and overall leadership effectiveness Good in the 2024–2025 inspection — Citizens' first substantive rating since opening in 2022.

The inspection identified a meaningful area for development: improving the capacity of middle leaders to drive improvement in their areas of responsibility. This signals that while senior leadership is functioning well, the layer beneath it is still maturing — a common challenge for schools in their early years of operation. Self-evaluation was described as robust and collaborative, with staff and parents actively involved in development planning, which inspectors noted positively.

On teaching quality, the inspection found that teachers in all phases have secure subject knowledge and that most understand how students learn. Teaching was rated Good in Foundation Stage and Primary, and Acceptable in Secondary — a distinction parents of older children should note. The school employs 56 teachers, with the largest nationality group being British, supported by 61 teaching assistants. The school's student-teacher ratio stands at 1:10, meaningfully below the Dubai private school average of 1:13.6 — a genuine structural advantage, particularly for a school committed to personalised mentoring. [MISSING: staff qualification percentage data, e.g. proportion holding Masters or above]

One of Citizens' most distinctive staff commitments is its mentor model: all teachers hold or are working towards professional coaching and mentoring qualifications, with the school claiming to be the first globally to complete the Advanced Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring in Educational Settings. This is a significant differentiator among British curriculum schools in Dubai. [MISSING: staff retention or turnover data from inspection or WSA commentary.] Parent and community engagement was rated Very Good — the highest sub-rating in the leadership section — with weekly 'Meet the Principal' sessions every Thursday, curriculum nights, coffee mornings, parent surveys, and a dedicated parent liaison officer reflecting a genuinely open-door culture. Management, staffing, facilities and resources were also rated Very Good, suggesting the operational infrastructure supporting leadership is strong even as the academic leadership pipeline continues to develop.