Dubai area guides › DIFC › Schools
Schools near DIFC
20 private schools within 5 km of the centre of DIFC, as their regulator records them: two rated Outstanding and eight very good at their last inspection, ten curricula between them, and approved fees from AED 7,043 to AED 140,382 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 DIFC — not a drive.
The DIFC area guide — what it sells for, what it rents for, and what it is like to live in →
Every school in the radius
Nearest to DIFC 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 DIFC. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jebel Ali School | UK | FS1-Y13 | Very good | 48,496–99,337 | 2,027 | 0.5 km |
| Citizens School | UK | FS1-Y8 | Good | 45,000–75,000 | 586 | 1.0 km |
| Jumeira Baccalaureate School | International Baccalaureate | Pre Primary-G12 | Very good | 62,727–94,089 | 1,614 | 2.1 km |
| Al Shurooq Private School | Ministry of Education | KG1-G12 | Good | 7,648–12,718 | 1,856 | 2.2 km |
| Japanese School | Japanese | Pre-primary-G9 | Good | 32,400–38,400 | 173 | 2.9 km |
| JSS Private School | Indian | Pre Primary-G12 | Very good | 11,866–25,769 | 2,091 | 3.1 km |
| Horizons English School | UK | FS1-Y6 | Outstanding | 30,780–43,108 | 1,379 | 3.4 km |
| Dubai British School Jumeira | UK | ECC (2-3) - Y7 | Not yet inspected | 51,477–69,872 | 531 | 3.5 km |
| DEWA Academy | Ministry of Education/BTEC | G10-G12 | Good | — | 106 | 3.9 km |
| Ambassador School | Indian | Pre primary-G12 | Very good | 22,323–44,700 | 1,382 | 4.3 km |
| Global Indian International School | Indian | Pre Primary-G12 | Good | 22,378–41,029 | 837 | 4.3 km |
| Iranian Towheed Boys School | Iranian · International Baccalaureate | KG1-G12 | Good | 12,044–15,185 | 796 | 4.3 km |
| GEMS Our Own Indian School | Indian | KG1-G12 | Very good | 7,043–14,359 | 3,687 | 4.4 km |
| North London Collegiate School Middle East | International Baccalaureate | Pre Primary-G12 | Very good | 89,629–140,382 | 1,782 | 4.5 km |
| Hartland International School | UK/IB | FS1-Y13 | Very good | 43,328–82,429 | 1,998 | 4.5 km |
| Lycee Francais Jean Mermoz | French | Pre Primary-G10 | Very good | 38,875–63,150 | 1,494 | 4.5 km |
| Dubai International Private School - Br | American | KG1-G12 | Good | 15,607–24,504 | 1,725 | 4.6 km |
| The Apple International Community School | UK | FS1-Y9 | Acceptable | 18,981–23,500 | 1,123 | 4.7 km |
| Jumeirah English Speaking School | UK | FS1-Y6 | Outstanding | 48,330–100,578 | 755 | 4.7 km |
| New Academy School | American | KG1-G12 | Good | 9,026–24,060 | 1,370 | 4.7 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 DIFC 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.
20 schools inside 5 km, 27,312 children between them. Two are rated Outstanding — Horizons English School and Jumeirah English Speaking School. The oldest opened in 1976 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. One of the 20 schools here is in that position — Dubai British School Jumeira. 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 DIFC 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 5 km is here, nearest first, to a limit of twenty — past that the twenty-first is not near by any reading.
What they teach
The curricula near DIFC
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 | 6 | 6,401 |
| Indian | 4 | 7,997 |
| American | 2 | 3,095 |
| International Baccalaureate | 2 | 3,396 |
| French | 1 | 1,494 |
| Iranian · International Baccalaureate | 1 | 0 |
| Japanese | 1 | 173 |
| Ministry of Education | 1 | 1,856 |
| Ministry of Education/BTEC | 1 | 106 |
| UK/IB | 1 | 1,998 |
UK is the commonest label within 5 km of DIFC, on 6 of the 20 schools, ahead of Indian at 4, American at 2 and International Baccalaureate at 2. 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 DIFC, answered
Which schools near DIFC are rated Outstanding?
Horizons English School (3.4 km) and Jumeirah English Speaking School (4.7 km) — the two schools within 5 km of DIFC that KHDA's inspectors rated Outstanding at the last inspection, nearest first. Eight more are rated very good: Jebel Ali School, Jumeira Baccalaureate School, JSS Private School, Ambassador School, GEMS Our Own Indian School, North London Collegiate School Middle East, Hartland International School and Lycee Francais Jean Mermoz.
What does a school near DIFC cost?
Between AED 7,043 and AED 140,382 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 19 of 20 schools the fee sheet covers. Within one school the fee rises with the grade — GEMS Our Own Indian School runs AED 7,043–14,359, North London Collegiate School Middle East AED 89,629–140,382. 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 DIFC?
Ten curricula across the 20 schools, as KHDA labels them: UK at 6, Indian at 4, American at 2, International Baccalaureate at 2, French at 1, Iranian · International Baccalaureate at 1, Japanese at 1, Ministry of Education at 1, Ministry of Education/BTEC at 1 and UK/IB at 1. A label naming two — Ministry of Education/BTEC — 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 DIFC?
Jebel Ali School is the nearest at 0.5 km and New Academy School the furthest on this page at 4.7 km, measured in a straight line from the centre of DIFC. 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 is 5 km, which is about the school run a family would actually make. More than twenty schools sit inside it, and this page holds the twenty nearest.
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 DIFC 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 DIFC, and what is for sale at property for sale in DIFC. The same page for the communities nearest this one: Zabeel, Downtown Dubai, City Walk, Al Satwa and Business Bay. 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.