At Kings’ School Nad Al Sheba, we treat every day as one step along a learning journey designed to inspire children to become effective, enthusiastic, independent and lifelong learners.
Our unique curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England and Early Years Foundation Stage, but is influenced and contextualised by global issues and local opportunities, and personalised to meet the specific needs and interests of our international community of children.
The curriculum is also innovative and concept-based. This ensures children are provided with endless opportunities to develop their understanding, as well as knowledge and mastery of skills, in a deeper and more meaningful way. The skilful weaving of factual, conceptual and provocative questions into lessons encourages critical thinking, collaboration and debate at the highest level. We also provide children with opportunities to influence what and how they learn to further personalise their learning journey whilst also fostering ownership and engagement. In addition, the cross-curricular teaching approach at Kings’ further immerses children in their learning and inspires them to make connections within and across subjects.
The main curriculum is further enriched by specialist teaching of Arabic, French, Spanish (from Year 5) ICT, PE, Swimming, Music and Islamic Education. Children also have access to an impressive range of technology (including iPads), which help to equip, develop and promote skills for lifelong learning.
At Kings’ School Nad Al Sheba, we provide a broad and balanced curriculum for our youngest children, aged 3 to 5 years, based on the UK Early Years Foundation Stage. From September 2021, we will be following the updated EYFS Profile (2021) The curriculum covers the areas of:
Every child is unique and our teaching is designed to treat all children as individuals. Our holistic approach means that parents/carers, class teachers, specialist teachers and learning assistants work very effectively together to support our ethos ‘the best by every child’. Our teachers skillfully plan an interest led curriculum, which empowers students to take the lead in their learning.
Our Guiding Principles within the Foundation Stage are as below:
Most importantly, we believe that happy and well-motivated children are good learners. The Foundation Stage is a safe, secure and friendly environment for our youngest children to gain confidence and independence, in preparation for the next stage of their schooling. It is an excellent foundation for future learning.
At Kings’ School Nad Al Sheba, the Primary level of schooling takes children from age 5 to 11, and is broken into two stages:
Our bespoke curriculum is based on the National Curriculum for England, to ensure that the skills and knowledge gained are in line with UK expectations. It is enhanced further by the addition of carefully chosen concepts in each year group to enable children to analyse, discuss and synthesize information at a deeper level. The curriculum is brought to life by the skilful planning of exciting hooks that engage our learners from the outset. Involvement of our young learners in deciding what and how they learn ensures greater personalisation of the curriculum to the individual children therefore making it more interesting, exciting and purposeful.
Our teachers carefully plan opportunities to make learning experiences accessible, purposeful, transferable and contextualised. Kings’ children are challenged to learn through collaboration, investigation and perseverance. They benefit from a wealth of experiences, including: growing their own vegetables; campaigning to the local community about environmental issues; listening to motivational speakers like: Team Angelwolf and Jon-Allen Butterworth; going on archaeological digs to ‘discover’ facts about Egyptians; designing happiness books, boxes, dances and songs to promote ‘Power for Good’ and enjoying lavish Roman banquets.
The learning experiences in Primary are designed to:
Where possible learning is taken beyond the limits of the classroom. Our amazing facilities, local culture and places of interest provide exciting opportunities to enrich the curriculum. From environmental trips to turtle hatcheries, Sustainable City and Green Planet to cultural trips to Dubai Creek, Burj Khalifa and Etihad Museum, the social studies aspect of our curriculum and the heritage of the UAE is brought to life. Furthermore our residential programmes nurture leadership skills and resilience as well as encouraging children to take risks.
Children at Kings’ School Nad Al Sheba will experience a rich learning environment, filled with exciting challenges, creative hooks and memorable experiences, all designed to inspire a lifelong love of learning.
