DubaiSchools.ai parent data guide
KHDA Phase Ratings: Why One Overall School Grade Is Not Enough
A school’s overall KHDA grade is a summary, not a description of every age group. Across 179 Dubai schools with published phase detail, the biggest break in this analysis appears at the first handover: learning-skills attainment is lower in primary than Foundation Stage at 60 schools, the same at 105, and higher at 13.
Most phase judgements match, but the exceptions are material
Across all six comparisons below, the largest segment is “same”. Yet the first transition is notably uneven: 60 of 178 schools have a lower learning-skills band in primary than in Foundation Stage. That is not a prediction for an individual child; it is a reason to read the relevant phase evidence instead of stopping at the school’s headline grade.
English attainment
Learning skills
| Measure | Transition | Later phase lower | Same band | Later phase higher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English attainment | FS to primary | 41 (24.0%) | 111 (64.9%) | 19 (11.1%) |
| English attainment | Primary to secondary | 29 (16.9%) | 115 (66.9%) | 28 (16.3%) |
| English attainment | Secondary to post-16 | 22 (16.4%) | 79 (59.0%) | 33 (24.6%) |
| Learning skills | FS to primary | 60 (33.7%) | 105 (59.0%) | 13 (7.3%) |
| Learning skills | Primary to secondary | 16 (8.9%) | 148 (82.7%) | 15 (8.4%) |
| Learning skills | Secondary to post-16 | 5 (3.6%) | 93 (66.9%) | 41 (29.5%) |
Why the Foundation Stage pattern deserves a closer look
Foundation Stage is smaller and organised differently from primary in many schools. A change of band can reflect curriculum expectations, teaching consistency, cohort evidence or the quality of the handover between phases. The data identifies where the published judgement changes; the inspection report explains why.
What this analysis leaves out
- It does not create a phase-level overall rating. English attainment and learning skills are specific KHDA judgements, not substitutes for the full inspection framework.
- Mathematics is not charted. Only a small minority of records contain comparable mathematics attainment in both adjacent phases, so displaying it beside the larger English and learning-skills samples would imply false comparability.
- Different children can experience the same phase differently. Subject set, teacher, support needs and year-group culture remain invisible in an aggregate band.
- Inspection evidence is a snapshot. Ask what the school has changed since the report and how it monitors the transition now.
A better way to use the overall grade
Use the headline KHDA rating to screen a long list. Then check the phase-level evidence for your child’s entry point, the next transition they will cross and any subject that matters disproportionately to them. The further ahead you are choosing, the less useful a single current label becomes.
Sources and method
Phase-level English attainment and learning-skills judgements come from KHDA inspection fields in DubaiSchools.ai’s open dataset. Each comparison includes only schools with a recognised band in both adjacent phases; samples therefore differ by transition and measure. “Lower” and “higher” describe the ordered KHDA band in the later phase and are not causal claims. See the methodology and KHDA ratings guide.
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