Secondary School - CAIE

The Cambridge international curriculum sets a global standard for education, and is recognised by universities and employers worldwide. The curriculum is flexible, challenging and inspiring, culturally sensitive yet international in approach.

The Cambridge international curriculum sets a global standard for education, and is recognised by universities and employers worldwide. They also gain the essential skills they need for success at university and in their future careers

The Cambridge teacher and learner attributes inspire a love of learning in our students and an innovative approach in our teachers.

Good assessment is at the heart of a good education. The assessments are fair, valid, reliable and practicable.

Cambridge students can be confident that their qualifications will be valued by universities and employers across the world.

We begin CAIE curriculum from grade 5 onwards. The preparation for the successful qualification of Advanced Level starts from grade 5 onwards.

The curriculum ensures continuity in the way the skills of research, analysis, evaluation, reflection, collaboration and communication are developed. It challenges learners to explore and make judgements on the global issues that really matter to them.

The cross-curricular syllabus of Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives develops learners’ ability to think critically, to research and to analyse different points of view whilst communicating ideas clearly. 

It provides excellent preparation for Cambridge International AS & A Level Global Perspectives & Research.

Grades 5 - 8

At this stage the school follows an adaptation of  the British National Curriculum, which is extensively used by international schools around the world. It is detailed, planned and integrated scheme covering a child's whole school experience. It is skilled-based curriculum, served by many excellent textbooks endorsed by Cambridge and resources, with its own testing mechanism.

Following are the subjects offered by school at this stage:

Grades 9 - 10

At this stage the school follows Cambridge curriculum as per the Cambridge Assessment International Education.

The IGCSE is a balanced international curriculum which is designed to encourage high academic standards througha practical approach to teaching and learning. The exams consist of a variety of tests e.g. oral and listening in most subjects and it allows the students to choose the most appropriate level papers. CIE provides 70 different subjects to suit differentregions.

Curriculum is differentiated as Core and Extended.

Core Level

Provides a full overview of the subject and is targeted at students expected to achieve Grades C to G. Students who do not achieve a minimum of Grade C in the school exams must register for core level in the board examinations.

Extended Level

Is targeted at those expected to achieve Grades A* to G. It describes the extra topics or depth which must be added to the core to produce the extended level.

List of Subjects Currently Approved by ADEK for CIE

• English Language
• Physics
• Mathematics
• Geology
• Biology
• General Science
• Chemistry
• French
• Economics
• Computer
• Business Administration
• Accountancy
• Sociology
• Technology

The subject combination that is followed in our school at this stage includes minimum of 7 compulsory subjects taken from the ministry approved list, other than the MOE Subjects.

Compulsory MOE Requirements

1. ARABIC
2. UAE SOCIALSTUDIES
3. ISLAMICSTUDIES (MUSLIMSTUDENTSONLY)/ PSHE (NON-MUSLIM STUDENTS ONLY)
4. MORAL EDUCATION

Subjects Offered by the School

Compulsory Subjects

1. ENGLISH(0510)
2. INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICS(0607)
3. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY(0417)

Optional Subjects

1. PHYSICS(0625)
2. CHEMISTRY(0610)
3. BIOLOGY(0620)
4. GEOGRAPHY/SOCIOLOGY
5. ACCOUNTS(0452)
6. ECONOMICS(0455)
7. BUSINESS STUDIES(0450)
8. GEOGRAPHY/SOCIOLOGY(0495)

AS (Grade 11) & AL (Grade 12)

Cambridge International AS and AL  syllabus have been created especially for an international audience. The content of International AS and AL is carefully devised to suit the wide variety of Cambridge schools worldwide and avoid any cultural bias. At the end of AS and AL the pupils will appear for the GCE examinations.

AS/AL level examination conducted by the CIE. The subject combination offered by the school is any three subjects taken from the following.

• Students are required to select minimum of three subjects at AS Level and must continue with the three subjects selected at AS in ALevel.
• As per the ADEK rules, Arabic and Islamic (for Muslim students) and Moral Education (ME) are compulsory for all students till grade12.

Promotion from IGCSE to Advanced Subsidiary

Minimum of 3 (THREE) B's in the IGCSE Board examination in the subjects opted in Advanced Subsidiary especially in theory and a minimum of grade C in all the home exams of Grade 10 including the rehearsals.

Promotion from AS to Advanced Level

Minimum of 3 (Three) D's in AS Board examinations in the subject opted in AL.

Our Own English High school, Al Ain continues to offer challenges to the students through various intra and inter school activities and competitions, thereby molding them to be world citizens. Students are given the opportunity to participate in almost all inter-school competitions where they emerge victorious.

The school's enrichment program includes school extra-curricular activities (ECA), that take place during the day or after school on weekly basis. These activities provide opportunities for students to discover their talents and abilities, and to enable students to create and innovate. It is our objective to encourage balanced, holistic development in addition to a sense of healthy competition and team spirit. Students' life skills are also improved through helping them to develop balanced personalities together with physical fitness.

These activities encourage students to explore and develop their personalities, creativity and skills.

Closely linked with the afternoon sessions are games, support classes, sports and other physical education programs.

• Enhance Learning (Math, English, Science)
• Digital Technology (Robotics, Science / Math Club/ STEAM Activities)
• Performing and Creative Arts (Art and Crafts, Music Club)
• Leadership (Debating)
• Sports - Chess, Football, Basketball, Zumba)

In addition, for students to showcase their talents we have the Montage in the month of December and the competitions run through three days - competitions like Quiz, Mind Craft, Music, Art attack, Arabic Short skit, Entrepreneur at Large, Fashion designing, Advertisements, Back drop designing, Music Mania for Juniors and Seniors, Mural Painting, Pencil sketch, Film craft, Arabic Dance and House Fusion dance.

Further, we provide our students the platform to voice out their opinions and tackle major global issues through competitions such as Model United Nations, Inter-House Debates and Elocution competition. We encourage students to think innovatively and come up with brilliant and ingenious solutions to modern day problems through our Science and Social Science Symposiums along with our ‘Project Based Learning’ modules.

Academics and academic achievement is one of the cornerstones of OOL. We deliver a wide range of fun, exciting and challenging competitions and activities to our students such as the Math, Science and English Olympiads. In addition to this we also provide academic support classes for those students who need more support in academics.

To embrace one’s identity is the key to become a global citizen in the 21st century. Therefore, we embolden our students to take pride in their identities through competitions and activities on events such as ‘My Identity Day Celebrations’ and ‘Emirati Children’s Day’

For our students to feel enthused, engaged, and inspired, they must be allowed to explore learning in well-equipped surroundings using state-of-the-art facilities.

With this in mind, Our Own English High School offers an impressive range of learning tools and educational resources. Discover more about our campus and facilities here.

Our aim in teaching is to create a situation where students become enthusiastic about understanding the subject matter themselves and consequently deeply integrate new content and frames of meaning into their way of thinking. This approach can generally be called student-centred and problem-based.

CBSE's global curriculum comprises built-in activities and exercises which promote cross curricular learning. This approach supports two important goals: the ability to apply knowledge effectively in a variety of contexts and to engage in higher level reasoning skills.

The curriculum ensures that each school is teaching students relevant material and monitoring the progress of students from all types of backgrounds.

A school's curriculum informs teachers what skills must be taught at each grade level to ultimately prepare students for postsecondary education or a job.

Digital learning is a type of learning that is accompanied by technology or by instructional practice that makes effective use of technology. It encompasses the application of a wide spectrum of practices including: blended and virtual learning.

Students are exposed to various tech tools which motivates and enhances learning.

BYOD sessions are integrated with regular classes to make the use of technology as a regular practice to measure the understanding and the progress in the course of the lesson.

Teachers are facilitators of students learning and creators of productive classroom environment. For learning to be effective, we adapt our teaching pace, approaches and assessment practices which are differentiated- for Gifted & Talented and Special Needs.

We guide learners to activate prior knowledge, and assimilate and accommodate new knowledge through exploration, and experiential learning. This allows them to build a strong foundation of knowledge by connecting new ideas and experiences with what they already know, thus facilitating the understanding of concepts and the application of what they have learnt to different contexts and beyond.

We guide them to construct, interpret, and evaluate knowledge from a multidisciplinary approach. We are focusing more on Inquiry based learning - where learning content is a means to develop information processing and problem solving skills. There is more emphasis on “how we come to know” than on “what we know”. The use of technology to connect students with world communities which are rich sources of learning.

Assessment is focused on determining the progress of skills development in addition to content understanding and helps children become self-directed learners - Formal & Informal Assessments. (AFL, AOL, ASL as per CBSE guidelines, refer to CBSE circulars uploaded. We have designed assessments with clarity of purpose with different tools & techniques (Quiz, Projects, Journals, Debate, etc.) & Rubrics.

We also use different Techtools to further enhance teaching and learning. It also provides feedback to address learning gaps and improve teaching practices.