A CBSE school owned and run by GEMS Education, Our Own Indian School first opened its doors in 1991, and is based in Al Quoz, Dubai. It currently has a ranking of ‘Good’ by Dubai’s education regulator, the KHDA, a rating it has held for the last four years.
The school is presently home to 3680, predominantly Indian students who follow the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum. All students are entered for the CBSE examination at the end of Grade 12, but may also elect to sit for the examination at the end of Grade 10. The school takes students from 3 to 17 years of age (KG to Grade 12).
The school is organised into Kindergarten with 428 students, primary (Grades 1-4) with 1201 students, middle (Grades 5-8) with 1301 students and secondary with 753 (Grades 9-12). Students are grouped into 106 classes giving an average class size of approximately 35 students. The school is now said to be “oversubscribed”. In the school’s 2013 report, classrooms were described as “overcrowded in most phases”. For its 2014 report, the KHDA only focuses in on KG classes, which “need to be brought in line with requirements” in terms of pupil size.
The school currently has 236 students with special educational needs.
Strengths of the school include its outstanding attainment in secondary mathematics; outstanding student-teacher relationships in the primary, middle and secondary phases; students’ good, and sometimes outstanding, personal and social development; outstanding secondary curriculum with a wide range of open choices for exam subjects; the clarity of vision of the principal and her drive for improvement; and the new primary curriculum and the school initiatives to use IT to support learning (Bring Your Own Device).
The report also notes however the need to address overcrowding, improve students’ progress in Arabic; improve the development of learning skills in the Kindergarten and to reduce the inconsistencies in classroom practice.
The school does well, so far, in responses received for the Which School Advisor School Survey, with Satisfied parents for both academic performance and levels of feedback parents receive. GEMs Our Own Indian School is rated Good pretty much across all phases of the school for both attainment and progress in core subjects, and examination results show good progress between Grades 9 and 10 and between Grades 11 and 12.
The school offers a range of extra-curricular clubs – from debating to arts, craft and drama, details of which may be found here. It is not clear if these will be part of the tuition fee, or if an additional charge will be made. These activities help with personal and social development of children at GOOIS, already described as Outstanding by the KHDA.
