Dubai area guides › City of Arabia › Schools
Schools near City of Arabia
16 private schools within 8 km of the centre of City of Arabia, as their regulator records them: three rated Outstanding and six very good at their last inspection, seven curricula between them, and approved fees from AED 9,679 to AED 112,446 a year. Every figure is the Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s own, from its Dubai Private Schools Open Data for 2024-25, read on 15 Sept 2026. The distance beside each name is a straight line from the centre of City of Arabia — not a drive.
Every school in the radius
Nearest to City of Arabia first
Curriculum, grade span, the rating KHDA's most recent inspection gave, the approved fee for 2024-25, pupils on roll, and the straight-line distance from the centre of City of Arabia. Each name opens the school's own website. Nothing here is ranked by us: the order is distance and the rating is the inspection's.
| School | Curriculum | Grades | KHDA rating | Fees 2024-25, AED / yr | Pupils | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GEMS Winchester School | UK | FS1-Y13 | Good | 19,902–37,521 | 4,182 | 1.0 km |
| Dunecrest American School | American | Pre Primary-G12 | Good | 48,612–94,053 | 773 | 2.1 km |
| GEMS First Point School | UK | FS1-Y13 | Very good | 43,271–74,017 | 1,954 | 4.9 km |
| Lycee Libanais Francophone Prive Meydan | French | Pre-primary-G12 | Very good | 38,988–67,716 | 1,295 | 5.0 km |
| The Indian International School (Dso Branch) | Indian | Pre-primary-G10 | Good | 9,679–21,000 | 3,417 | 5.7 km |
| The Aquila School | UK | FS1-Y11 | Good | 47,555–76,088 | 1,281 | 5.9 km |
| Jumeirah English Speaking School (Br) | UK · International Baccalaureate | FS1-G13 | Outstanding | 48,330–100,578 | 1,814 | 6.6 km |
| Dubai Schools Corporation Nad AlShiba | American | KG1-G6 | Not yet inspected | 29,900–43,800 | 541 | 6.9 km |
| GEMS Wellington Academy | UK/IB | FS1-Y13 | Very good | 39,414–89,001 | 4,265 | 6.9 km |
| Rashid and Latifa School | UK | FS1-Y6 | Not yet inspected | — | 97 | 7.1 km |
| Lycee Francais International Georges Pompidou School | French | G1-G12 | Very good | 36,072–49,536 | 2,045 | 7.1 km |
| Dubai English Speaking College | UK | Y7-Y13 | Outstanding | 81,082–87,147 | 1,863 | 7.4 km |
| Kings School Al Barsha | UK | FS1-Y13 | Outstanding | 56,667–112,446 | 3,053 | 7.6 km |
| GEMS Metropole School - Al Waha | UK | FS1 - Y8 | Not yet inspected | 40,000–50,000 | 1,505 | 7.6 km |
| Bilingual French International School | French | Pre Primary-G10 | Very good | 48,459–94,095 | 558 | 7.7 km |
| German International School Dubai | German | Pre Primary-G12 | Very good | 38,760–73,227 | 950 | 7.7 km |
KHDA’s Dubai Private Schools Open Data, 2024-25 edition, read on 15 Sept 2026 (the workbook). Distance is a great-circle line from the centre of City of Arabia to the school’s own coordinates as KHDA publishes them, so it is shorter than any drive. The rating is the latest the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau awarded, with no year against it: the workbook’s dated columns stop at 2022/23 while 28 schools’ printed rating is a later round it does not date, so putting the last dated year beside the current word would be wrong for those. A blank rating is a school not yet inspected, not a poor one. The fee is the approved annual tuition for the cheapest grade the school teaches to the dearest, and a dash is a school the fee sheet does not cover. Pupils are the roll KHDA recorded for 2024-25. Every licensed private school within the radius is here — a few of them teach the kindergarten years only, and the grade span says so — and nothing outside it is.
16 schools inside 8 km, 29,593 children between them. Three are rated Outstanding — Jumeirah English Speaking School (Br), Dubai English Speaking College and Kings School Al Barsha. The oldest opened in 1998 and the newest in 2024, which is the shape of the district around them as much as of the schools.
Read this before the table
How KHDA rates a school
One regulator, one scale, one inspection team. A rating on this page is the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau's, not a parent forum's average and not ours.
Six words
KHDA inspects every private school in Dubai and publishes one of six ratings for it: outstanding, very good, good, acceptable, weak and very weak. They run in that order, so acceptable is the middle of the scale rather than the bottom of it: weak and very weak sit below. The word on this page is the one the last inspection gave, with the academic year it belongs to beside it, so a rating awarded four years ago reads as four years old rather than as today’s.
Why some say “not yet inspected”
A school that has just opened has no rating, because KHDA’s framework does not inspect one until its third year of operation. Three of the 16 schools here are in that position — Dubai Schools Corporation Nad AlShiba, Rashid and Latifa School and GEMS Metropole School - Al Waha. A blank in the rating column is that, and never a rating withheld.
What the fee is, and is not
A Dubai school may not set its own fee freely: the figure here is the annual tuition KHDA approved for 2024-25, per grade, which is why one school shows a span rather than a price. What it does not cover is the rest of the bill — registration, uniform, books, the bus, examination entries, and the deposit that holds a place — all of which a school charges on top and none of which is in the approved figure. Fees are reviewed each academic year, so check the school’s own KHDA fact sheet before you budget on this.
And what “near” means here
The centre of City of Arabia is a single point — Property Finder’s own for the community, or the mean of its placed buildings where PF holds none — and each distance is the great-circle line from it to the school’s published coordinates. It is the honest version of “near”, and it is not a commute: a canal, a motorway or a one-way system can double it. Every school inside 8 km is here, nearest first.
What they teach
The curricula near City of Arabia
KHDA licenses a school to teach a named curriculum, and prints the name on its record. These are those names, counted — not our reading of what a school is like.
| Curriculum | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 7 | 13,935 |
| French | 3 | 3,898 |
| American | 2 | 1,314 |
| German | 1 | 950 |
| Indian | 1 | 3,417 |
| UK · International Baccalaureate | 1 | 0 |
| UK/IB | 1 | 4,265 |
UK is the commonest label within 8 km of City of Arabia, on 7 of the 16 schools, ahead of French at 3, American at 2 and German at 1. A family moving between curricula mid-school year is the one case worth planning around, and it is a question for the school rather than for a register.
Questions people ask
Schools near City of Arabia, answered
Which schools near City of Arabia are rated Outstanding?
Jumeirah English Speaking School (Br) (6.6 km), Dubai English Speaking College (7.4 km) and Kings School Al Barsha (7.6 km) — the three schools within 8 km of City of Arabia that KHDA's inspectors rated Outstanding at the last inspection, nearest first. Six more are rated very good: GEMS First Point School, Lycee Libanais Francophone Prive Meydan, GEMS Wellington Academy, Lycee Francais International Georges Pompidou School, Bilingual French International School and German International School Dubai.
What does a school near City of Arabia cost?
Between AED 9,679 and AED 112,446 a year, on the fees KHDA approved for 2024-25. That span is the whole ladder: the cheapest grade at the cheapest school to the most expensive grade at the most expensive one, across the 15 of 16 schools the fee sheet covers. Within one school the fee rises with the grade — The Indian International School (Dso Branch) runs AED 9,679–21,000, Dubai English Speaking College AED 81,082–87,147. The fee is tuition only; uniform, transport, books and examination entries are charged on top and are not in KHDA's figure.
Which curricula are taught near City of Arabia?
Seven curricula across the 16 schools, as KHDA labels them: UK at 7, French at 3, American at 2, German at 1, Indian at 1, UK · International Baccalaureate at 1 and UK/IB at 1. A label naming two — UK/IB — is a school KHDA licenses to teach both, typically one through the lower school and the other in the senior years; which runs where is the school's own arrangement, and its own site is where to read it.
How far are these schools from City of Arabia?
GEMS Winchester School is the nearest at 1.0 km and German International School Dubai the furthest on this page at 7.7 km, measured in a straight line from the centre of City of Arabia. A straight line is not a drive: a school a kilometre away across a canal or a motorway can be a longer run than one three kilometres down the same road, and this page has no routing data to tell you which. The radius here is 8 km rather than the usual five: fewer than six schools sit within five kilometres of City of Arabia, so the list widens rather than name two and stop.
Where do these ratings and fees come from?
From the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, Dubai's regulator of private education: its Dubai Private Schools Open Data workbook for 2024-25, read on 15 Sept 2026. Every private school in Dubai is inspected by KHDA's Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau and given one of six ratings — outstanding, very good, good, acceptable, weak, very weak — and the fee it may charge for each grade is approved and published by the same authority. A school with no rating here has not been inspected yet; KHDA's framework inspects a new school in its third year of operation. Nothing on this page is our opinion of a school, and nothing is an average of reviews.
The City of Arabia area guide is the page above this one — the district in numbers, and what it is like to live in. What is to let there today is at property for rent in City of Arabia, and what is for sale at property for sale in City of Arabia. The same page for the communities nearest this one: Majan, Falcon City of Wonders, Al Barari, Living Legends and Arabian Ranches 3. A family choosing between two communities on the school run is choosing between two catchments that overlap: the lists on those pages share schools with this one, and the distance column is what tells them apart. Every private school in Dubai ranked by KHDA’s word rather than by distance — wherever in the city it stands — is the best schools in Dubai.