GEMS Metropole School - Al Waha - Emirates RoadPrincipal & Leadership Team

GEMS Metropole School – Al Waha is operated by GEMS Education, the world's largest operator of private schools, and is led by Principal & CEO Jeremy Hallum, who has been in post since the school's founding in September 2023. Hallum brings over two decades of educational leadership to the role: educated at Oxford University (degree in Education, 1996), he holds the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) and served as headteacher of two schools in Essex over 12 years before joining GEMS. He joined the group in 2018 as Founding Vice Principal of GEMS Founders School – Al Mizhar, and also founded and led the British Schools in the Middle East (BSME) teaching and learning network, spanning over 150 schools. He is a qualified BSO inspector — a credential that lends particular weight to the school's own inspection outcomes.

The senior leadership team includes Hazel Halligan as Head of Primary and Peter Stoddart as Deputy Head of Secondary. Governance sits within a Local Advisory Board structure, with fees regulated by KHDA and group oversight provided by GEMS Education. The school has not yet undergone a DSIB inspection — a DSIB inspection is due in the 2026–27 academic year — so no KHDA rating has been assigned. Parents should note this gap when comparing MTW against rated peers; among British curriculum schools in Dubai, 18 of 105 hold an Outstanding KHDA rating, representing a high but achievable benchmark.

What the school does have is a significant external validation: in April 2025, MTW was awarded Outstanding by British Schools Overseas (BSO), becoming, by the school's own account, the youngest new school in the world to achieve an Outstanding BSO rating. The BSO inspection cited exceptional leadership and exceptional standards of teaching and learning as headline findings — independent corroboration of the quality claims made by the school's leadership. The school also holds the Optimus Wellbeing Award for Schools (October 2024), signalling that pastoral culture is not an afterthought.

On teaching quality, the school reports that 95% of teachers are British-trained, a figure that speaks directly to curriculum consistency across the National Curriculum for England. Student-teacher ratio data has not been published for MTW at this stage; the Dubai city average across all private schools is 13.6 students per teacher based on data from 204 schools, and this figure should be sought directly from the school before enrolment. Parent engagement is structured through leadership programmes developed in collaboration with parents and regular parent-teacher conferences, consistent with the school's stated vision of building a sustainable and inclusive community hub. Staff retention data has not been independently reported, though the stability of the founding leadership team across the school's first two years is a positive early signal.