SABIS® School Network: International Schools of Choueifat
International Schools of Choueifat/ SABIS® School Network
The first International School of Choueifat was opened in 1886 in the village of Choueifat, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. The founders wanted to provide a basic education for Lebanese girls.
Due to demand, the school became co-ed and then expanded overseas in 1975, with the opening of a school in Sharjah, UAE. The SABIS® school network currently has around 62,000 students enrolled in schools in 15 countries, including many Middle East countries, the US, Germany and Pakistan. The schools are primarily private, although some (for example in the UAE and US) are operated as public private partnerships. There is also a SABIS® university in Kurdistan.
Schools use the SABIS® Educational System, a comprehensive kindergarten to grade 12 curriculum adapted where necessary to suit local needs. According to the schools, the curriculum is a mix of the best of the UK and US education systems with a focus on English, maths, sciences and world languages. The school in Bahrain, for example, has a bilingual English/Arabic programme or English/French for international students.
Schools are non-selective but students are tested for ability when they apply and there can be an age range of up to 3 years in any one class. Students graduate with the SABIS® High School Diploma. The schools are accredited to allow students to sit O and A levels or the American Diploma and Advanced Placements where these are needed to allow access to the students’ chosen universities.
Students are encouraged to participate in the Student Life Organisation (SLO™), an active student body managed by selected prefects whose aim is to allow the students to develop “life skills”.
The school in Bahrain now has 1270 students from many nationalities. Although they couldn’t give us a breakdown, we suspect many of the students are locals or other Arab nationals. Western expats we have spoken to seem wary of the school either because they are unfamiliar with the SABIS® system or because they are worried about transferability to other schools outside the SABIS® network.
More information can be found at the following websites: