Horizon International School (HIS), part of Al Najah Education, is a supportive, student-focused international community school following a British style of education.
Centrally located in Umm Al Sheif, the school caters to students aged three to eighteen years old. Its highly qualified UK-trained teachers and purpose-built facilities enable the school to give each and every child the opportunity to thrive. Horizon International School prides itself on providing an effective balance between academic rigour and creative and sporting pursuits. The school places a strong emphasis on its values and community spirit, which underpins its mission ‘Everyone Counts, Everyone Contributes, Everyone Succeeds’.
The staff at Horizon International School strive to challenge and inspire all learners to develop their skills and nurture values through a love of learning so that they can responsibly embrace the diverse challenges of tomorrow.
Early Years Foundation Stage
In a safe, welcoming and happy environment where they can thrive, children are encouraged to learn through play, which helps them to develop their language skills, emotional intelligence, creativity, social and intellectual skills.
The focus is on personalised learning. Teachers continue to monitor the learners in the classroom and expand on what they already know. Children are given the tools they need to build on their learning styles, which will help them gain the knowledge, skills and attributes they will need in the future.
HIS follows the UK Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, and the DSIB has given it an outstanding rating for its curriculum, which is broad, balanced and diverse. The most important objective is to ensure that every child maximises their full potential through play-based learning activities, giving them the opportunity to learn, play, and make friends.
Teachers support and challenge their ideas through inquiry, allowing children to enhance and grow their thinking and learning across all areas of the curriculum.
The school believes that parents should be actively involved in their children’s development throughout these critical years. Parent-Teacher meetings, term reports, Let’s Learn sessions, Online Parent Workshops, and Parent Time are all opportunities for parents to engage in their child’s learning and achievement at HIS.
Lessons are tailored and personalised by the highly trained and dedicated teachers to ensure that each child makes progress and receives the appropriate amount of stretch and challenge.
Primary School
Providing the required skills to embrace the ever-changing world is fundamental to the Primary School’s approach in providing the most enriching, challenging and exciting learning experiences. HIS is dedicated to supporting its students to become resilient learners who understand their own unique learning needs and can independently define their own goals in order to progress in their personal or academic lives.
Lessons are personalised by inspired and passionate teachers to ensure that each child makes progress and receives the required levels of stretch and challenge. Teachers employ all available strategies to achieve this, and the distinct ‘Spirit of Horizon’ is evident as you walk through the learning environments.
HIS ensures that students have access to a broad, balanced and diverse curriculum as well as an enriching extra-curricular programme, allowing them to develop and express their unique skills and talents.
The Primary School is divided into two Key Stages:
- Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and 2)
- Key Stage 2 (Year 3 to 6)
The curriculum for the Primary School is based on the National Curriculum for England to enable children to flourish both academically and socially.
This curriculum offers a diverse range of academic, social, physical, cultural, and creative learning experiences, encompassing all major subject areas with a bespoke HIS emphasis on the skills connected with each subject, as well as activities that are are critical for holistic development.
Secondary School
In recent years, the HIS Secondary School’s academic results have been consistently high, placing it among the top British Curriculum schools in Dubai.
While student accomplishment at GCSE and A-Level is a highlight of the HIS experience, the school’s fundamental academic strength is the progress that all students make against their starting points; to put it another way, students routinely make better than expected progress at HIS.
As they progress through the school, students appreciate that teachers know them and know them well, citing individual attention as crucial to their success. Relationships between students and teachers are integral to their ongoing success, with staff regularly going above and beyond to support. Stretch and challenge students.
As well as being able to support every student academically, the pastoral care and wellbeing of students of highest priority; HIS believes that students meet and exceed their potential only through a focus on the whole child. School is about more than just exam results, and the school values of Ambition, Happiness, Respect, Positivity, Kindness, Diversity, Resilience and Honesty ensure that all students have the opportunity to become the best versions of themselves.
There is more to this boutique school than meets the eye. Parents are welcome to visit and find out for themselves exactly what is meant by everyone counts, everyone contributes, everyone succeeds.
The school’s facilities enable it to give every child the opportunity to thrive, with a balance between academic rigour, creative expression, and athletic endeavours.
Post-16
HIS Post-16 aspires to be a successful and caring learning community that motivates students to respond to future challenges and contribute positively to the wider community.
A supportive and enriching learning environment is guaranteed for all Post-16 students. The pastoral and guidance structure of the school guarantees that it gets to know its students as individuals, allowing them to receive individualised personal and academic pathways.
There is more to this small school than meets the eye
The Post-16 curriculum is gaining a reputation in Dubai for academic success. Students, supported by our teachers, tutors and parents, set and achieve challenging goals. Every Post-16 student acknowledges their influential role in the life of the school and understands their responsibility to the wider local community. Post-16 students are expected to exhibit excellent attitudes and attributes.
While certain students may choose to work as apprentices in competitive industries or take a gap year before continuing their education, the majority go on to study at some of the world’s most prestigious universities at the end of Year 13.