Dubai English Speaking College completes move to new premises

Dubai: A school has celebrated its first anniversary in style, by moving into a brand new campus.

Students at Dubai English Speaking College (DESC) moved into their new university-style school with 24 classrooms in Academic City earlier this week.

For the past year, the youngsters had to share facilities with Dubai English Speaking School (DESS) in Oud Metha Road, which caters to primary students.

DESC headmaster Peter Daly, 48, described the Dh58 million new school buildings and grounds as "superb".

DESC, which began lessons in September last year, was created to allow students who have completed their primary education at DESS to have a secondary school that follows the English and Welsh National Curriculum to go on to.

Daly said up to now many parents had been forced to send their children on to boarding schools in the UK for their secondary education after leaving DESS.

Currently DESC's 120 students are in years seven, eight and nine (aged 11 to 14) only, but each year the school will expand by one year until it teaches youngsters right up to year 13 (for pupils aged 18).

The maximum capacity is for 800 students.

About 80 per cent of the students are British, with a wide variety of other nationalities represented among the rest, who come from the UAE, the Indian subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.