School of Research Science Dubai

[Cristina]

Hi Shawarma,

I'm new to this forum as I decided to register after I read your reply to a member with regards to the Sheffield school. I thought it was very comprehensive and informative and I wondered whether you could share your views on another school in the area.

I enrolled my children in the School of Research Science (just opposite Dubai Women's College) thinking that it followed the British Curriculum and because I want them to have a more in-depth knowledge of the Arabic language whilst not compromising their British background.

As school has just started though, I quickly realised that my boys are the only non-arabic speakers in their classrooms and I'm concerned that their current English knowledge will suffer.

Please could you tell me if you have any comments about this school or point me in the right direction.

Thank you for your help.
Cristina

[shawarma]

Hi cristina and welcome to the Dubai school forum .

School of Research Science is the DubaiFAQs page. We try and keep these up to date, but it's not always easy to determine what is the predominant nationality, or type of curriculum on offer. Some schools are quite clear on their websites about who goes there, and what they offer, other schools are not so helpful (and I would be suspicious of schools that are lacking in clarity). Similarly, some schools helpfully send us emails, or add comments in the forum, with information we can use to update their details, others don't bother.

You'll see SRS is listed as having an Arabic/UK curriculum in the DubaiFAQs UAE schools list. That's because although they do offer UK qualifications, they, like many other private schools, educate predominantly Arab students in English, so the curriculum is not run in quite the same way as one of the more "British" UK curriculum schools. I have also heard in the past, from teachers, that SRS is a very conservative establishment, and is not quite what many British, or western, parents were expecting. However, in the end, if you are wanting an Arabic education for your children, you will probably find that schools that suit you will have mostly Arabic students. The more British schools with mostly UK students will have Arabic language education but maybe not enough to feel that your children are immersed in it.

Hopefully as time goes on, our list of schools will become more informative, and posts like yours help a lot. But I'm sorry that doesn't help you much at present .

[Cristina]

Thank you Shawarma for your prompt reply and for clarifying the situation, I'm really trying to determine whether I've made the right choice!

The DubaiFAQS pages have proved really helpful, you are doing such a great job!

Thank again,
Cristina

[shawarma]

Thanks very much and you're welcome, glad the site is helpful .

[Cristina]

Hello Shawarma,

I hope you are well.

I know that the School of Research Science was recently inspected and I was wondering whether the results are published and if so, where.

Do you know if the DESS is due and inspection this year as well?

Finally, what can you tell me about the British Orchard and Yellow Bricks nurseries?

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,
Cristina

[shawarma]

The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) said that some sort of report would be available on their website for schools they have inspected but I don't know when - check khda.gov.ae (note that khda.ae is spam and khda.com is nothing relevant). I was trying to check myself but I can't get the page loaded at the moment. I'm afraid I don't know what their timetable is for inspections but I think DESS and DESC may have been inspected in October or early November 2008. See these pages for information on the other schools you asked about ...

Yellow Brick Nursery
British Orchard Nursery, and I've started a topic about the British Orchard Dubai nursery / childcare center.

[Razan]

Hello:
i would klike to know how can update the data about schools listed in www.dubaifaqs.com because the details about the school of research sciecne "head of primary "is the old one
can you visit our web site: www.srsdubai.ae//index.cfm?fuseaction=Pages.Pages&PageId=25&MasterPage=3

and change the name of head pf Primary

thank you

[shawarma]

Hello razan, welcome to the Dubai forums and thanks for the update .

You can either post a reply here with relevant information, including the new name, that way people finding the dubaifaqs.com information don't need to wait for an update as there is a link to this topic on the SRS Dubai page. Or send the information to dubaifaqs.com directly (see the dubaifaqs contact page for details of how and what to send).

Dubaifaqs information has been updated now with the new primary head's name (Mr Stephen Morgan is now Head of Primary School according to SRS website for those interested) .

[arigold]

What is this school like to work for?

Just got a job offer, in their recent inspection they got 'Acceptable', which is kind of worrying.

[shawarma]

Hello arigold and welcome to the Dubai forums .

The KHDA inspections were focused on rating schools based on how well they did in terms of providing an education rather than how they rate as a place to work. And there were some ratings that seemed to be out of kilter with common perception so it's difficult to come to a conclusion about the validity of relying on a KHDA rating when choosing a school as a place to work. I certainly wouldn't make a decision based solely on the KHDA rating, and would be inclined to dismiss it if there was other reliable information that conflicted with it. The teacher satisfaction rating for the School of Research Science according to the dubaifaqs.com page is a little under average (2.5 stars), and salary range looks to be fairly low if compared to other private schools offering western curriculums. Have a search through the tes.co.uk and eslcafe.com forums to see if there are any comments there about SRS Dubai. They are busy teacher forums.

[ihagmusa]

Hi There,

My 3 daughters studying in the SRS for a year now! I have moved them from another school in Dubai where they were enrolled for 3 years!
With regards to KHDA's inspection reports & SRS, I think the report is indeed misleading as my judgment about the SRS is very positive. We expected at least 'Good' . My kids were enjoying the school, we as parents can foresee the improvements the kids have made in all aspects. Though in their previous school they have been exposed to the American Syllabus yet in SRS they made outstanding progress! The environment in the School is wonderful and they have a mix of Arabic/Islamic culture and British flever of education . The teachers are very committed. The kids enjoyed the school activities yet they ask too much fees for it!

My cons as follow:
1- The school board is exaggerating the school's level of students by sharing the wrong statistics, i.e. they used the wrong data to compare the school's student level to the British NC's system being the whole UK school's statistics vis-a-vis the 'single' SRS's school statistics which I found it very funny. The KHDA's report on this respect came very positive indicating that the school has to make more attention to expose English as second language!!!
2- The school fees has been increased to more than 25% although the KHDA's report inspected SRS as 'Acceptable'! The school is entitled to a maximum of 9% increase!!
3- The school adminstration and especially the account are not friendly. One incident to proof my point is during the final exams they bombarded us with lots of harassing SMS's texts about the new registeration. Eg. if you don't pay by this date your kids will not be accepted for next year. It was not acceptable to me. They treated us as they are an incasso bureau. I complained to the school with no avails!
4- I feel that the workload for some teachers is not equally divided. I.e. you can realize this point when visiting the school for the evaluation day as you can see clearly that some teachers are overloaded!! To be more specific the Social Studies teacher of all my daughters is the same person. He is teaching grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 (multiple classes as well)!!
5- The turn over for the teachers is minimum during the year 2008/2009!!

Thanks and best regards,

Dr. Isam
Dubai

[shawarma]

Hello ihagmusa, thanks for your comments and welcome to the Dubai school forum .

Regarding point 2, that's unfortunate. It might be worth contacting the KHDA about that to see what they say. The KHDA seems to be more on the side of parents as evidenced by the recent Dubai Modern High School controversy over fee increases.

Regarding point 3, the KHDA was aware of many schools doing this and announced that schools were not supposed to collect the following year's fees before the summer break (I think they may have been allowed to collect a minimum deposit of 500 dhs or something).