Founded
2005

First school of Innoventures Education

Curriculum
IB continuum

PYP → MYP → DP + Career-related Programme; first in the UAE

Years
KG1–Y13

All-through, ages ~4–18

Location
Emirates Hills

First Al Khail Street, by the Lakes and the Marina corridor

Size
~2,750 students

85+ nationalities

KHDA rating
Outstanding

2022-23 and 2023-24; Very Good dip 2017-22

The short version

The short version

Dubai International Academy in Emirates Hills is the UAE’s original IB school: opened in September 2005 by Innoventures Education with 500 pupils, it was the first school in the country authorised to teach the full IB continuum — Primary Years, Middle Years, Diploma and Career-related programmes — from KG1 to Year 13.

Today it teaches roughly 2,750 students from more than 85 nationalities and is the only all-IB school in Dubai rated Outstanding by the KHDA.↗↗

For an expat family, the practical summary is this: if you have chosen the IB pathway deliberately — not as a default — DIA Emirates Hills is the most credentialed continuum school in the country, with 2025 Diploma results (36.1 average) at the top of Dubai’s IB table.

If you are undecided between systems, remember that a continuum school commits you early: there is no British or American track to fall back on here.

What the school is

One continuum, three campuses, one owner

DIA is run by Innoventures Education, a Dubai-based group founded in 2004 by CEO Poonam Bhojani — not by Taaleem or GEMS, the two operators it is most often confused with.

The DIA brand now spans three campuses: the Emirates Hills original (2005), DIA Al Barsha (opened 2018, rated Very Good, 2025 Diploma average 35.4), and DIA Town Square, opening in August 2026 with discounted founding-family fees. Innoventures also runs the Raffles schools and Collegiate International School.↗↗

The academic model is the full continuum, which matters practically: the PYP’s inquiry-based primary classroom leads into the MYP’s interdisciplinary middle years and then a genuine post-16 choice — the full Diploma, the Career-related Programme, or IBDP Courses, a streamlined subset of the full Diploma.

BTEC Level 3 appears in the school’s curriculum listings as a vocational complement. A child can move from age 4 to 18 without a curricular break, which is the continuum’s real selling point over schools that bolt the Diploma onto another system at 16.↗↗

Academics in practice

Results, and an honest look at the rating history

The 2025 IB Diploma cohort averaged 36.1 points — the highest among Dubai’s IB continuum schools in WhichSchoolAdvisor’s 2025 comparison table — with a reported 100% pass rate. In the MYP’s 2024 e-assessments, students averaged 43 of 56 against a global average of 37.48.

The 2024 graduating cohort is reported to have secured over USD 13 million in university scholarships; treat that as a school-reported aggregate rather than a verified figure.↗↗

The rating history deserves a straight telling.

DIA was the first IB school in the UAE to be rated Outstanding, in 2015-16, and held it the following year — then dipped to Very Good for several cycles between 2017 and 2022 before reclaiming Outstanding in 2022-23 and retaining it in 2023-24, the most recent full inspection before Dubai’s two-year pause.

That arc is actually informative: it tells you the school absorbed a critical inspection period and demonstrably rebuilt, rather than coasting on an unbroken record.↗↗

University destinations cited by the group span the US (Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Columbia, Cornell), the UK (Oxford, Cambridge) and Canada (McGill, Toronto) — a CEO-level list that mixes group-wide and historical placements, so ask for the Emirates Hills campus’s own most recent leaver table with cohort sizes.↗

Admissions and cost

Admissions, fees and the calendar

The school publishes a full 2025-26 schedule: AED 44,979 (KG1), AED 50,726 (KG2), AED 51,202 (Year 1), AED 57,983 (Years 2-6), AED 65,224 (Years 7-9), AED 72,482 (Years 10-11) and AED 79,696 (Years 12-13), billed in three terms.

That makes DIA notably cheaper than the British and American flagships in this series at every phase — a real consideration for a family pricing a 13-year IB journey. Dubai’s KHDA has frozen tuition for 2026-27.↗↗

Entry and ancillary costs: an entrance test fee of AED 525 (including VAT, non-refundable but adjustable against Term 1), a new-student enrolment fee of 10% of annual fees (adjusted against Term 1), and a 10% re-enrolment advance each year.

Two details stand out: English-as-an-Additional-Language support, where the school assesses it as needed, is a condition of admission costing AED 4,500 per year; and the sibling discount — 10% — starts only at the fourth child.↗

Admissions run through the school’s own entrance testing rather than the selective exams of the British secondaries, and the continuum structure means the big intake years are KG and the early primary years.

Families considering the newer DIA campuses should know the brands share ownership but not ratings: Al Barsha is Very Good, and Town Square opens uninspected — the Emirates Hills record does not transfer.↗

The family experience

Location, community and the daily reality

The campus sits on First Al Khail Street in Emirates Hills, between the Marina corridor and Dubai Hills — practical for the Lakes, the Meadows, the Springs, Jumeirah Islands, JLT and the Marina itself. This is one of Dubai’s most school-dense commuter zones, so the morning run is competitive but short for villa-community families nearby.

The community is among the most international in this series — 85-plus nationalities with no single dominant group reported — which suits globally mobile families and is a genuine point of difference from the British-anchored schools. Parent feedback collected by WhichSchoolAdvisor repeatedly highlights confidence and public speaking as visible outcomes of the IB’s presentation-heavy pedagogy.

The question to press on a visit is language: with EAL charged and conditional, ask how many students receive it and how the school keeps them inside mainstream inquiry classrooms.↗↗

Our readConfidence: Medium

The benchmark IB continuum — for families who have chosen the IB on purpose

DIA Emirates Hills has the deepest IB paper trail in the country: first full-continuum authorisation in the UAE, two decades of operation, the only Outstanding rating among Dubai’s all-IB schools, top-of-table 2025 Diploma results, and a fully published fee schedule that undercuts every British or American flagship in this series.

The 2017-2022 rating dip is on the record too — and the recovery is more reassuring than an untested record would be. Our confidence is Medium because this edition is document-based, some outcome aggregates are school-reported, and the 2026-27 fee document was not yet published at research time.

The fit question is curricular conviction. DIA suits families who want the IB from age 4 to 18 in a large, genuinely international school near the Marina corridor — and who have compared the continuum against the bolt-on Diploma models at GEMS World Academy or Nord Anglia.

It does not suit families wanting GCSE/A-level structure, US-college counselling depth, or a small-school feel. One structural note: the DIA name now covers three campuses with different ratings and fees — make sure the record you are buying is the Emirates Hills one.

Take these to the school

Questions that move beyond the tour script

Admissions and transition

  1. For our child’s year group, what does the entrance assessment involve, and is there a waitlist at our entry point?
  2. How are students joining mid-continuum — from British, American or other systems — supported into the PYP or MYP?
  3. Will the EAL condition apply to our child, how is that assessed, and what does EAL provision look like inside mainstream classes?

Academics and support

  1. May we see the last three years of IB Diploma results with cohort sizes, pass rates and 40+ point shares — for this campus specifically?
  2. How do families choose between the full Diploma, the Career-related Programme and IBDP Courses, and how many students take each?
  3. What changed between the Very Good inspection years and the 2022-23 return to Outstanding — and what does the school expect from the new 2026-27 inspection model?

Cost and logistics

  1. Beyond tuition, what should we budget in year one for the entrance test, enrolment fee, uniform, devices, trips and IB examination fees?
  2. Which bus routes serve Emirates Hills from our shortlisted communities, and what is the annual cost?
  3. Are any scholarships or bursaries available, and do any group-level discounts transfer between DIA campuses?

Continue your research

Choose your next step

Sources and further research

Where to verify and keep reading

We favor direct links to the exact page or document a family may need next. Access dates matter because admissions, tuition, leadership, and programs change.