The Schools That Produce Leaders Are Not Teaching Leadership, They Are Building It
Christopher R. Tompkins, Principal of Horizon Private School Abu Dhabi, on why the best question to ask about any curriculum is not how it compares on paper, but what it produces in practice.
The Caricature and the Reality
There is a version of American education that its critics love to describe: undisciplined, uneven, more interested in self-esteem than substance. Like most caricatures, it holds a grain of truth. The United States is a vast, decentralized country and its schools reflect that. Some are extraordinary. Some are not.
For families in the UAE weighing this question, the average is the wrong number to look at. What matters is what a particular school actually delivers.
“The great American universities – Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago were not built by government mandate. They were built by communities of independent thinkers who believed education’s purpose was not to produce correct answers, but to ask better ones”
AP vs IB: Different by Design
Families in Dubai often ask how an American curriculum compares to the International Baccalaureate. They are different by design, not better or worse. The IB is a rigorous, inquiry-driven framework that has earned its reputation in this region and globally. Advanced Placement shares that commitment to depth and inquiry but works differently.
Students choose which subjects to pursue at the advanced level, building a program around their strengths and direction. Both models expect serious academic work. What AP offers in addition is a degree of choice that mirrors how universities actually work: you go deep where it matters most to you.
The Math Rigor Question
One concern consistently arises among international families, particularly those with ambitions in medicine or engineering: mathematics. The assumption, often inherited from British or South Asian educational traditions, is that American schools are creative but soft on rigor in math and science.
The reality is different.
Rather than moving students through a rotating carousel of mathematical topics, the American approach teaches mathematics in discrete, deep stages: algebra, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus, statistics. Each stage is built on real mastery of what came before. In a well-run American program, mathematics does not sit in isolation. It lives inside physics, chemistry, data science, and engineering design. Students learn to use it as a tool for understanding real systems, not just executing procedures on a page.
“Students learn to use mathematics as a tool for understanding real systems, not just executing procedures on a page”
What the Results Show
At Horizon, the numbers make the case directly.
In 2025, Horizon students sat for 102 AP examinations. 95% achieved a passing score of 3 or higher, with an overall average of 3.9 out of 5. In Biology, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, and Physics C, every single student who sat for the exam passed.
Horizon AP Results at a Glance, 2025
- 102 AP exams sat
- 95% pass rate (score of 3 or higher)
- Overall average score: 3.9 out of 5
- 64% of all exams earned a 4 or 5
- 22 out of 61 AP students earned formal AP Scholar recognition from the College Board
- AP Scholar average score: 4.20
- Five years ago: 31 students, 61% pass rate. Today: 61 students, 95%
These exams are written and graded by the College Board, not by the school. The trajectory matters as much as the results: a program that is growing and getting stronger at the same time.
“Five years ago, 31 Horizon students were sitting for AP exams with a 61% pass rate. In 2025, that is 61 students at 95%. A program that is growing and getting stronger at the same time”
Built From the Beginning
Those outcomes do not emerge at the secondary level. They are built over years.
In Horizon’s early childhood and elementary programs, students work in dedicated music and art rooms, science labs, and physical movement spaces designed as core learning environments, not extras. Creativity, focus, and genuine inquiry are developed from the start, alongside the real application of skills and knowledge. By the time students reach the AP level, the intellectual habits those exams reward are already part of how they think.
One Campus, Pre-K Through Grade 12
Horizon runs a complete American program from Pre-K through Grade 12 on a single campus. The relationships, expectations, and culture that shape a child carry forward without interruption. Students come from more than 50 nationalities, so an international perspective is simply part of daily life. UAE values and national identity run through the curriculum as something students genuinely engage with, not a subject they sit through.
That instinct toward skepticism, evidence, and genuine intellectual independence does not always show up on a single high-stakes exam. It shows up a decade later, when your child is sitting across from a venture investor, a research committee, or a leadership team, and knows exactly how to think.
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Further Reading
- A School Built Around Students, The Horizon Private School Story
- New School Coming to Dubai: Horizon English School Town Square to Open in 2027