Welcome to Dwight School Dubai: A Global Leader in International Baccalaureate Curriculum

I am particularly thrilled that we are opening the Dwight School Dubai now in 2018, when the UAE celebrates the Year of Zayed.

As an IB educator I see that the Dwight ethos of fostering the next generation of innovative global leaders – one student at a time – fits perfectly with the late ruler’s visionary leadership proven in his ability to lay the foundations for a proud and entrepreneurial nation that balances enterprising modernization with a strong sense of cultural and social heritage.

It is a privilege to bring an international IB school to the UAE that aspires to be among the most successful countries in providing world-class education.

I will humbly say that the Dwight legacy introduces the values of a truly personalized international learning experience for each student through the academically rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum.

Dwight is dedicated to “igniting the spark of genius” in every child. At Dwight we recognize that no two students are the same – therefore, no two student journeys at Dwight are the same.

We have specialized in customizing an educational path for every student based on interests and talents. Dwight School Dubai promises a unique attention to the individual child.

The construction of the school is progressing rapidly and we are meeting every development milestone successfully to welcome our students on the first day of school in September.

Each time I visit the site I am stunned by how quickly it is advancing, it is very exciting to see our vision becoming a reality and to imagine how wonderful it will be when the campus is full of our students utilizing our state of the art facilities.

Every child has a spark of genius. Our goal is to nurture that potential to help our students learn and grow. We do this through our Personalized Learning pillar.

Whether connecting a student with an exceptional mentor, designing tailor-made enrichment, crafting a special study abroad opportunity, or providing a novel program or tutorial, Dwight goes out of its way to recognize and foster each student’s uniqueness, their individual gifts and talents.

Quest is a learning accelerator – a support program designed by Dwight School New York over the past 25 years to bring Dwight’s promise of personalized learning to life for students with specific academic needs to enhance and promote their success.

Quest is designed as additional support beyond the provision that the school will routinely offer in terms of differentiation, learning intervention and specialist support. It is a bespoke program planned in collaboration with parents and faculty.

It replaces the need for parents to engage outside tutors to boost academic performance, which I understand a lot of families have to do in Dubai, and uses the connections between the Quest mentor and the student’s teachers to enhance learning.

Quest is not viewed as special needs provision – at Dwight we can therefore particularly appreciate that the UAE refers to students of determination – as Quest supports students who may have an imbalance in their academic performance, it assists with study skills and organization and it provides an option for parents who wish to enhance their child’s experiences and opportunities through a school approved program.

Quest comprises tailor-made skill development and learning strategy tutorials. Quest is an enrichment program that provides expert teachers for students who would benefit from enrichment in an academic discipline.

Quest provides English language instruction and support for non-native speakers. Quest facilitates flexible learning structures to allow students to pursue exceptional talents.

The UAE culture has been strengthened by exposure to cultures from around the world, making Emiratis global citizens without losing sight of who they are. The KHDA, the authority upholding the UAE education landscape in Dubai, underwrites the preservation of the Arabic culture through education and at Dwight School Dubai, as well as through our unique Centre of Excellence for the celebration of Arabic language, culture and the arts, we are dedicated to advancing an appreciation of the Arabic language, culture and identity among all our students and the wider Dwight community.

Host nation appreciation, global understanding and tolerance as well as multi-lingual proficiency are essential elements of an IB education. Arabic language and Islamic studies as well as the new moral education are local educational policies that resonate well with the Dwight school’s approaches to learning.

There is a fundamental recognition of the importance of self-knowledge in the IB philosophy. Appreciation for and understanding of one’s own culture and language is at the root of understanding others. Empathy, ethics and international mindedness are essential values as we need to know ourselves, so that we can know other people and other cultures, and they need to know us.

Dwight throws out big challenges and problems for students to interpret, analyze and solve in their own individual way. We teach our students to develop their sense of critical thinking, teaching them to step out of the familiar, to step out of their own cultural context and truly learn to reflect on and seek to understand concepts from various angles, to value others and to understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right., which is thoughtfully reflected in the IB mission.

Our students become reflective, flexible, well-rounded, knowledgeable, resourceful, balanced, ethical, caring, individuals instilled with the respect, ingenuity, resilience and skills required to go out in the global society with the affirmation that the individual counts and can make a significant difference to positively impact the world we all share.

Dwight students globally are accepted into the top universities and design schools each year, in 2017 our students were accepted to MIT, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford and UCL along with the University of the Arts London, University of the Arts Central St. Martins and the New School of Design.

It excites me that the UAE promotes a culture of innovation in schools with a national recognition that skills, far beyond the traditional academic skills are essential to instill in students as we depend on our youth to create a sustainable future.

Quoting from the KHDA Inspection Framework ‘Innovation is driven by a commitment to excellence and continuous improvement. Innovation is based on curiosity, the willingness to take risks and to experiment to test assumptions. Innovation is based on questioning and challenging the status quo. It is also based on recognizing opportunity and taking advantage of it.

Being innovative is about looking beyond what we currently do well, identifying the great ideas of tomorrow and putting them into practice.’ At Dwight School student driven innovation and creativity are nurtured across the campus.

Spark Tank, our ideas incubator, teaches K-12 students entrepreneurial, innovation, and leadership skills beyond the classroom, and in our creative maker spaces and flexible learning and studio spaces in which students can explore, create, and let their imaginations soar, Dwight students craft and invent, reflecting their own individual passions.

I left Oslo International School, an outstanding international IB school in Norway, where I was the Head of School since 2013, to take up the position as founding Head of Dwight School Dubai, also a highly renowned international IB school. In that sense the role does not differ.

I have even had the privileged opportunity of starting up schools before, both in Norway and in Belgium. However, I have never worked in the Middle East and I am thankful for the personal growth opportunity that this position thus provides and allowing me as an educational leader to further build bridges within and between cultures. Another exciting differentiator is that Dwight extends globally with campuses across four continents my role has as such an added element of international outreach and interchange, hugely beneficial to both students and colleagues.

A student admitted to Dwight Dubai is automatically admitted to Dwight New York, London, Seoul and Shanghai. As a leader I am also able to promote international exchange for our faculty and staff as Dwight offers professional development opportunities and career growth on a global arena.

I see myself as a democratic leader who is actively present and focus on empowering my colleagues, as much as we empower our students to take responsibility for their own learning.

I firmly believe that leaders need to model the behavior we want the organizational culture to be recognized by. It is thus important to me to foster a culture of trust, passion and continuous transformation set in a collaborative, dynamic and change willing environment.