Dubai National School AlTwar
Executive Summary
The overall quality of education provided by Dubai National School (Branch) is rated as Good for the 2023-2024 academic year. Children in Kindergarten and students in high school achieve well in all subjects. Most students demonstrate respectful and considerate behavior, with a strong understanding of Islamic values and their relevance to the UAE, alongside strong social responsibility and innovation skills.
Most teachers possess strong subject knowledge, successfully engaging students in the best lessons, though this quality is not consistently observed. The curriculum aligns with Ministry of Education requirements and Massachusetts State Standards, supporting continuity and progression. The school maintains strong health and safety standards, robust child protection policies, and effective counseling services, ensuring students feel safe.
Leaders prioritize wellbeing, inclusivity, and national identity, with recent initiatives reflecting commitment, though their impact on school performance is inconsistent. Parental engagement is very effective, and governors are supportive. Staffing and resources are adequate, but management skills vary, and the data informing self-evaluation processes are not always reliable.
Overall School Performance
Outstanding
Very Good
Good
Acceptable
Weak
Very Weak
Dubai National School AlTwar Overall Rating
Good for 7+ consecutive years
Dubai Focus Areas
These three pillars represent the Dubai education authority's priorities: ensuring inclusive practices, prioritizing student wellbeing, and meeting UAE National Agenda targets.
The school demonstrates commitment to students of determination through improved identification and assessment procedures, detailed Individual Education Plans (IEPs), and strong parental support. However, the premises lack sensory rooms and kinesthetic resources, and there is inconsistency in implementing differentiated learning activities and in teachers' and learning support assistants' skills. Students of DeterminationIEPs
The school effectively prepares healthy, happy, and confident citizens through in-class and extra-curricular activities, moral education, and social studies. It systematically identifies student needs, offers counseling, and fosters strong parent partnerships. The curriculum provides diverse pathways, balanced homework, and after-school activities, with surveys indicating students feel safe and valued. wellbeingMoral educationcounsellors
The school has been successful in exceeding National Agenda targets for international assessments, with students' PIRLS scores improving and exceeding targets. MAP test scores, including those of Emirati students, improved in language usage, reading, mathematics, and science. The school's action plan focuses on modifying provision and curriculum to meet external assessment requirements, though quality varies. PIRLSMAPEmirati cohort
Key Highlights
Standout achievements identified by the inspection team that distinguish this school.
Progress in Islamic Education
Elementary school students demonstrate very good progress in Islamic Education, particularly in memorization of the Holy Qur’an and Noble Hadith.
Personal & Social Development
Students exhibit very good personal and social development, including a strong understanding of Islamic values, Emirati culture, and global awareness.
Protection, Care & Support
The school provides very good protection, care, guidance, and support for students, with robust health and safety standards and effective counseling services.
Parental Partnerships
The school maintains very effective partnerships with parents and the wider community, fostering a supportive and welcoming environment.
Academic Performance Breakdown
Leadership & Management
Effectiveness of school governance, strategic planning, and leadership capacity to drive continuous improvement.
Leadership Approach
The leadership team is strongly committed to fostering wellbeing, care, and inclusion, guiding improvement through National Agenda goals. While leaders are dedicated to enhancing standards and understanding curriculum and teaching practices, their management skills vary, and not all possess the necessary expertise to drive improvement effectively in their respective areas.
Inspection Findings
Students' Outcomes
Children in KG and high school students achieve well across all subjects. Achievement is also good in other phases, except for mathematics and English in Elementary, and mathematics and Arabic as a first language in Middle. Students collaborate effectively, listen to others, and demonstrate responsible attitudes to learning.
Personal Development
Most students exhibit respectful and considerate behavior, with a strong understanding of Islamic values and their relevance to the UAE. Social responsibility and innovation skills are strong across all phases, and older students actively participate in humanitarian initiatives, demonstrating ambition and a positive work ethic.
Teaching Quality
Most teachers possess strong subject knowledge and successfully engage students in the best lessons, though this quality is inconsistent. The promotion of higher-order thinking and the level of challenge for more able students are variable, and assessment information is not consistently used to plan lessons tailored to students' learning needs.
Protection & Care
The school maintains strong health and safety standards, robust child protection policies, and well-trained staff, ensuring students feel safe. The building is clean, regularly maintained, and accessible. Effective counseling services are provided, and while the identification of students’ learning needs is effective, the support provided to match these needs is less consistent.
Areas for Development
- •Improve the capability of leaders, particularly subject leaders, to drive improvement.
- •Improve the quality and consistency of teaching and learning.
- •Ensure that in lesson planning teachers make full use of assessment information to match learning activities to the needs of students.
- •Ensure that all of the data used to inform self-evaluation and improvement planning are accurate.
- •Ensure that the school adopts a reading assessment that produces Standardized Age Scores (SAS).
- •Accelerate the rate at which students develop their reading literacy skills.
- •Ensure that wellbeing is fully embedded into all areas of the curriculum.
- •Enhance leadership opportunities for students in the field of wellbeing.
- •Provide more opportunities for students to engage in self-directed learning, inquiry and research.
- •Provide students with clear guidance on the structure of their writing and on how to improve.
- •Raise teachers’ expectations and the pace of learning in lessons, particularly in the middle school.
- •Provide more opportunities in lessons for students to engage in conversations using Arabic.
- •Modify reading materials to be more accessible for new students and personalize tasks to match students’ years of study.
- •Improve the reading literacy skills of all students in all phases.
- •Ensure that students have sufficient time in lessons for independent reading and writing.
- •Increase the amount of lesson time spent on problem-solving using more than one method.
- •Use the reports from international and external assessments to identify and address gaps in students’ mathematical skills.
- •Ensure that students, especially in the elementary school, are provided with more opportunities to learn independently in lessons.
- •Ensure that students take more responsibility for their own learning in lessons.
- •Ensure that enterprise, enquiry, research, critical thinking and problem-solving feature in all lessons.
- •Ensure that all students demonstrate self-discipline and mature behavior.
- •Ensure that teaching provides an appropriate level of challenge for all students.
- •Ensure that the school's processes to analyze internal and external data produce more realistic measures of students' attainment and progress.
- •Make full use of assessment data to identify where curriculum modification need to be made to address weaker domains of learning.
- •Ensure that curriculum adaptations meet the learning needs of all students.
- •Ensure there are more planned opportunities to promote enterprise, creativity and innovation.
- •Ensure that learning strategies and tasks are consistently matched to students’ abilities and needs.
- •Ensure that all teachers and learning support assistants have the necessary skills to implement the learning strategies in students’ IEPs.