Victory Heights Primary School Review
Nearby nurseries
The story so far...
Victory Heights Primary School, located in Dubai Sports City, is a boutique British National Curriculum school that caters to the population around Victory Heights, Dubai Sports City and Jumeirah Golf Estates, although there are students from further afield.
From the early days, VHPS has been in strong demand from parents living around this expanding area - so much so, that in August 2021, a separate Foundation Stage unit opened on the outskirts of Dubai Sports City in order to enable more children to start their education at VHPS, and also to enable the school to expand to a limited extent through taking over the space previously occupied by the youngest children.
As Principal Sasha Crabb explains, "Our vision to ‘Nurture, Challenge and Excel’ has led to outstanding academic progress, a varied and creative curriculum, and children who develop into confident and well-rounded individuals. Our children clearly love learning and come bounding through the gates every morning ready for new and exciting challenges, alongside our highly-qualified and dedicated teaching staff."
Victory Heights Primary School is accredited by British Schools of the Middle East (BSME), COBIS - the Council of British International Schools, and by British Schools Overseas, which carries out an inspection based on UK Department of Education School standards every three years.
VHPS was rated Good (the second of four ratings issued by BSO) when it was inspected in early 2017, but following its BSO inspection in May 2022, the school achieved the highest inspection rating of Outstanding across all standards. You may read a copy of the highly impressive inspection report here.
The current population of the school is just over 850 students, and the majority are British passport holders. Slightly less than one percent of students are Emirati and close to ten percent of students are registered as students with SEND requirements. Over 50% of students on joining the school are not native English speakers. VHPS has long been known as a highly inclusive school, often accepting students who have been rejected elsewhere.
Read our recent School Experience Visit Review HERE!
The majority of teachers are British passport holders and if they are not recruited from the UK, they are highly qualified, with the experience necessary to deliver the British National Curriculum. There are 56 teachers and 26 teaching assistants; the teacher to student ratio averages 1:15. The teacher turnover rate in the last academic year was a remarkable 0 compared with an average of 20-22% in Dubai. This is important for continuity in curriculum and school development and evidence of the genuine commitment of staff to the school.
No one should underestimate the importance of the presence of the Principal, Sasha Crabb, who has been with the school since its opening and has ensured not only stability, but a strong focus on improvement. Sasha is admired not only by parents and staff at 'her' school, but by the wider UAE Education community as a whole, who celebrated with her on winning WhichSchoolAdvisor.com's sister website's SchoolsCompared.com award for Principal of the Year in the 2019 awards.
In the most recent KHDA report, inspectors commented "the Principal's passion and enthusiasm are infectious". Sasha is not only committed to her school, her staff, students and parents, but is also the inspiration for them. Staff regularly hear "I've had an idea", and know that they will be involved in its development. Sasha's introduction to herself on the school website includes "She continues to think outside the box with school initiatives and her autobiography will be called Method to the Madness". There is nothing boring about this school.
What about the curriculum?
VHPS offers the English National Curriculum for the Early Years' Foundation Stage, and Key stages One and Two. With its focus on the core skills of English, Maths and Science, VHPS focuses not only on what is taught, but how it is taught and how children's development and academic progress is measured.
Lessons are designed to make links across the subject-areas, ensuring that creative topics make learning exciting for the children, and using a variety of teaching tools and methods. VHPS organises field trips linked to learning, and focuses on developing children’s skills as well as their knowledge and understanding. Teachers carry out both formative (on-going) and summative assessments, closely tracking children’s progress and documenting children’s learning in order to celebrate their achievements.
A key focus of the school is the relationship it builds with parents, who receive regular feedback and are involved in learning, through workshops, information sessions and class activities.
At the core of the curriculum, VHPS aims also to develop the key aspects of Positive Education aimed at enabling children to develop their power as learners, so that they can achieve their best throughout life. Key attributes, which are in line with KHDA's Lighthouse project, support 10 traits for PosEd including creativity, curiosity, courage, integrity, resilience, empathy, fairness and tolerance, awe, gratitude and purpose.
The school aims to deliver a holistic education, addressing not just academics, but student-wellbeing in its widest sense. In early 2023, students from VHPS won the Under 11 British Schools of the Middle East games, beating off a large number of much bigger schools to take the top prize.
What about the facilities?
VHPS is located in the centre of Dubai Sports City in an area that is still under development. A consistent area of concern for the school and the Regulator has been the road infrastructure around the school, surrounded as it is by high-rise buildings - several of which are still under construction - the lack of appropriate parking and safety concerns, given the number of vehicles (including construction vehicles) around the school.
Having said, once inside the school grounds, the issues outside the school are left behind. Although not the largest external sports facilities, the school manages the use of the site for play time and for sports activities very well. Facilities at Victory Heights Primary School include a Foundation Stage Block that has been designed so that it is completely separate and self-contained from the rest of the primary school, and a cluster design throughout the school, where classrooms open out to central indoor activity areas.
A second building was added in 2016, containing an indoor swimming pool on the ground floor and a range of additional classrooms and administrative areas above. This has considerably increased the capacity of the school.
What the inspectors say
The most recent KHDA report, for 2018-19, again rated Victory Heights Primary School as Very Good for the second year in a row.
In fact, on initial review of the Students's Achievement - the first key performance measure, one has to wonder why the school has not been rated Outstanding.
Every rating for progress and attainment in English, Maths and Science is now rated Outstanding, with each having improved in the most recent inspection. Learning skills are rated Outstanding in Early Years and Very Good in the remainder of the school. Unfortunately, Arabic for both native and second language speakers, and Islamic Education, do not achieve quite the same heights. Whilst progress in Arabic as a first language is rated Good, the remaining ratings across the three subjects are rated Acceptable - and this is clearly where focus needs to be, as there has not been sufficient improvement to achieve a higher rating this year.
Inspectors commented that "In the Foundation Stage, children's achievement and their learning skills have improved and are excellent. In the Primary phase, students achieve exceptionally well in English, Mathematics and Science..."
Ratings for the other key performance standards - Students' Personal and Social Development and their Innovation Skills, Teaching and Assessment, Curriculum, and the Protection, Care, Guidance and Support of students' are almost universally rated Outstanding in the Foundation Stage. The ratings across these key performance standards in the Primary school are largely rated Very Good.
In particular, both Teaching and Assessment and Curriculum were rated Very Good, as they were in 2017-18. These are two standards which have been an area of concentration for the KHDA in the past two to three years and standards are exacting.
Leadership and management - made up of five measures - has improved in two of them; specifically Leadership, and Management, Staffing, Facilities and Resources. These are in addition to Parents and the Community which had already achieved the highest rating.
Overall, the inspection team found that the strengths of VHPS are:
- The inclusive vision of the Principal, which is shared with all school leaders and governors, and the school's relentless drive for improvement through research and innovation;
- The quality of provision, care, guidance and support for children in the FS and the impact this has on their personal development and academic progress, including their progress in Arabic as first language;
- Primary students' personal and social development, their very well-developed learning skills and their achievement in English, Maths and Science;
- The systems for assessment and the increasingly positive impact this has on students' progress in lessons;
- The productive partnerships forged with parents and other schools and the positive impact this has been on the community.
In terms of areas of improvement recommended for the school:
- Governors, Senior leaders and parents should continue to press the appropriate authorities to find a solution to improve road safety for students when outside the school;
- Improve students' achievement in Arabic by ensuring that:
- teachers use accurate assessment information to plan lessons that provide appropriate levels of challenge for students of all abilities;
- students have opportunities to develop all four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
- Improve students' achievement in Islamic Education by:
- ensuring that teachers communicate with Islamic A students using correct Arabic language;
- ensuring greater consistency used to engage and challenge all students and to assess their learning accurately.
In addition to these specific recommendations, there is no doubt that the inspection team will wish to see improvements in Teaching and Assessment, and the Curriculum on their next visit.
However, there is so much about Victory Heights Primary School, its ethos, and the excellent provision across the school that will, and should, encourage parents to seek it out, even if there is a little way to go until (and not if in our view) the final Outstanding accolade from the local regulator.
It is a school that lives by its aim "to create a fun and stimulating learning environment, where every day is a magical voyage of discovery for children".
If you would like to read the full inspection report - and we strongly advise that you do so in order to understand the reasons behind the ratings, the recommendations for improvement (and to determine how relevant these may be to your children)- you can find it here.
The Buzz
The WhichSchoolAdvisor.com survey completed by parents at VHPS shares equally positive responses to our questions. 71% of parents said that their children enjoyed going to school "a tremendous amount", with a further 22% saying "quite a bit". There was a 93% satisfaction rating for the level of academic performance, whilst 86% of parents were entirely satisfied with the level of feedback from the school. A whopping 93% of parents (the UAE average is 73%) would recommend VHPS to others, although interestingly, at some stage 21% had considered moving their child to another school - though this is again well below the UAE average of 36%. 64% of parents felt that the school's fees represented good value for money (against a UAE average of 45%).
If you are a parent, teacher or student at Victory Heights Primary School, please do share your thoughts and experiences with others by completing our survey here.
Parents who responded to the KHDA's pre-inspection survey (approximately 75% of families), were almost all very positive about the school. They believe their children are safe and very happy at school and are doing well academically, socially and emotionally. They are well informed and involved in school life.
Our View
There are a small number of Primary schools in Dubai, but each of them has an outstanding reputation. Many parents are concerned about sending their three year old children to a through school environment where they fear that the youngest and oldest will inevitably cross paths at some stage, or because they are concerned about the sheer size of these schools and the potentially intimidatory impact on young children.
Although obviously much more modern than the traditional UK primary school, what VHPS does share with the original UK model is an environment with a strong sense of community and care for the youngest students. We cannot recommend VHPS highly enough as the perfect place for young children to commence their formal education.
What about the fees?
Fees for Victory Heights Primary School start at AED 36,576 for FS1 and rise to AED 49,877 for Year 6. These fees are exclusive of transport and school uniforms and any addition charges related to paid Extra-curricular activities, field trips or school visits. The Application Fee and Assessment Fee is a combined AED 850, the Medical Fee is AED 500, and the enrolment fee is AED 7,000. The Enrolment Fee is a non-refundable deposit which is deducted from a student's first term’s tuition fees.
Fees also do not include any English language or Special Needs Learning Support that students may require.
This school is in a Best School by parents ranking
Victory Heights Primary School is a Best of school, a ranking determined by parent surveys on the site. It can be found in the following Best of rankings:
- #4 in Best Schools in the UAE
- #2 in Best British Schools in Dubai
- #2 in Best Primary Schools in Dubai
- #4 in Best Schools in Dubai
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