While the teaching staff are predominantly British and the curriculum is taught in English, the school is adept at integrating students from a wide variety of cultural and academic backgrounds.
QIS was founded by Sheikh Ali bin Ahmed bin Thani Al Thani and the first Principal, Mrs Joyce Griffin, in 1977, making us one of the first British International Schools in Qatar.
Since then, we have changed and grown significantly – including a move to our current location of Al Dafna in 2001. Indeed, from very small beginnings almost 50 years ago, QIS has now grown into one of the largest and most prestigious schools in the country, with around 2,000 students on role.
In 2015, the school received the highest possible grading from the Qatar National Schools Accreditation programme, when inspected by the country’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
Then, in 2020, QIS achieved two highly prestigious international accreditations:
Firstly, QIS was judged to be ‘outstanding’ in every category of the UK government’s British School Overseas (BSO) inspection framework – only the third school in the world ever to have achieved this.
Secondly, in the same year, QIS became the first school in the world to be awarded Council for International Schools (CIS) accreditation by a new fast-track process for outstanding schools. The final CIS report included over 100 individual commendations and helps to make us one of the most highly regarded educational establishments in the region.
QIS recently became the only school in the Middle East accredited to deliver OLEVI training courses straight from the UK, such as The Outstanding Teacher’s Programme. The school also partners with many other world-renowned training providers to ensure cutting-edge best practice. We are proud to say that quality training for staff is part of the QIS culture.
Qatar International School is led and managed entirely by British professionals, who strive to maintain the highest standards of the current English education system, whilst also supporting the school’s Arabic culture and international context.
Our current Executive Principal, Mr. Deane Baker, joined the school in 2013. Deane has more than 22 years of senior, school leadership experience, both in the UK and Middle East. As a Principal in the UK his leadership was described as “outstanding,” by Ofsted in multiple inspections. A former member of their Advisory Headteacher Panel, Deane has worked closely with both Ofsted, the UK Government and HMI to improve and support education policy and leadership. Now, as well as advising the Qatari Government on British Education, he also sits on the Executive Committee of the British Schools in the Middle East (BSME,) responsible for all country representatives across the region’s 150 schools.
The vast majority of QIS teaching staff have trained and taught in the UK, and we pride ourselves on ensuring we keep up to date with the best international practice in education and learning.
Students are taught in Key Stages from Early Years and Key Stage 1 through to Key Stage 5, and examinations are taken in GCSE, IGCSE and A Levels using UK examination boards. Almost all students leaving QIS move on to higher education in leading universities all over the world but most especially the UK, USA, Canada, UAE and Qatar itself.
Our student body is truly international, with over 70 different nationalities represented within the current cohort. And, since 2015, those students have achieved some incredible, world-beating outcomes. These include at least seven ‘Best in World’ examination results at IGCSE and A Level.
While the teaching staff are predominantly British and the curriculum is taught in English, the school is adept at integrating students from a wide variety of cultural and academic backgrounds.
With this in mind, we are proud of our vision – the ‘ABC’ of Qatar International School:
