Victory Heights Primary School – City of Arabia is led by Founding Principal Ben Rothwell, who brings over a decade of direct experience within the Victory Heights family. Mr Rothwell served as Headteacher at Victory Heights Primary School Sports City from its founding year in 2013 until July 2025, before transitioning to lead this new campus at its opening in September 2025. That continuity of leadership — carrying institutional knowledge directly from an KHDA Outstanding-rated sister school — is a meaningful signal of stability for a brand-new institution. Parents considering a new school should weigh this carefully: the leadership here is not untested.
The senior leadership team is notably deep for a school in its first year. Alongside Mr Rothwell, the team includes Rob McCall, Danielle Barratt-Duffy, and Michelle Choytooa on the Senior Leadership Team, Charlotte Brookson as Assistant Headteacher, and Natalie Doidge as Head of EYFS. This breadth of experienced leadership across key phases — particularly early years — suggests the school has been deliberately staffed to support quality from day one, rather than building capacity incrementally.
Governance is provided by Interstar Education, under a Board of Directors chaired by Dinesh C. Kothari. The board includes specialist representation across educational strategy, safeguarding, inclusion, early years, and Emirati affairs — with Director of Academics Sasha Crabb providing direct curriculum oversight. Clerk to the Board Colette Pereira supports formal governance processes. The structure reflects a considered approach to accountability, with clear separation between strategic governance and day-to-day school leadership. As a new school, no KHDA/DSIB inspection has yet taken place, and no formal inspection rating has been issued. Parents should note this is a standard position for any school in its first year of operation; among British curriculum schools in Dubai, 19 of 105 schools are currently classified as New Schools without a substantive rating.
On class size and staffing, the school has made an explicit commitment: a maximum class size of 25, with the stated aim that every child is known by every teacher. No formal student-to-teacher ratio has been published, so direct comparison against the Dubai city average of 13.6:1 is not yet possible. However, the capped class size policy, combined with specialist teaching from early years across PE, swimming, music, art, computing, STEAM, Arabic, and Spanish, implies a staffing model designed for low ratios. Staff qualification data and retention figures are [MISSING: no staff qualification or turnover data published].
Community engagement is actively structured. The school operates an active PTA alongside a Parent Champions programme, providing formal channels for parent involvement beyond standard communication. The school's ethos — encapsulated in its motto Belong. Become. Be Anything. — is reflected in a house system, student leadership programme, and pastoral care framework. The school is actively pursuing BSO (British Schools Overseas) and BSME accreditations, which, if awarded, would provide independent external validation of its educational standards against UK benchmarks.