Choosing a school in Al Qusais, Al Nahda and Al Twar: 26 schools

Al Nahda is one district with an emirate boundary through it. The Dubai side is KHDA's area Al Nahda Second, and its 7 schools are the ones on this site's Al Nahda page; the Sharjah side belongs to another emirate and another regulator, so it is outside this site. When a listing, a landlord or a school bus timetable says «Al Nahda», ask which side.

The schools' own transport pages show how closely the two sides live together. Each line is the school's wording in summary, from the page named in the Buses section, read 22 September 2026.

• Dubai Scholars Private School puts Qusais, Al Nahda Dubai, Mamzar and Al Twar in its Zone 1 and runs six zones «in Dubai and Sharjah».
• H.H. Shaikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistani School lists «Nahda Dubai, Shaikh Colony» and «Sharjah, Al Nahda» as two separate rows.
• Hampton Heights International School lists «Al Nahda Dubai 1 & 2» on one row and «Al Nahda, Sharjah» on another.
• American International School lists a Sharjah zone that starts with Al Nahda and Al Tawoon.

For a family choosing a flat, the practical point is simple: a school here may well have a bus to the Sharjah side, but its KHDA rating, its fee sheet and its calendar are Dubai documents, and a Sharjah address does not change them.

Al Qusais has 14 private schools, Al Nahda 7 and Al Twar 5, and no two of the three areas are more than 4.3 km apart. Tuition for the first year of primary in 2026–27 runs from AED 2,859 to AED 28,059 a year. Of the 24 schools KHDA has rated, 16 hold Good or better; 2 schools have no rating yet.

The table lists every school on the three pages with its curriculum, its latest KHDA rating with the year of that inspection, and its 2026–27 tuition for one stage: Year 1 at British schools, KG2 at American, Indian CBSE and Pakistani schools. That is the first year of primary in each system, the stage the fee pages use, so the column compares like with like.

What the table shows

• Fees for this stage range from AED 2,859 to AED 26,000 in Al Qusais, from AED 4,177 to AED 28,059 in Al Nahda and from AED 14,650 to AED 27,041 in Al Twar.
• Of the 26 schools, 8 list this fee under AED 10,000 and 17 under AED 20,000; the other 9 are between AED 20,847 and AED 28,059.
• Ratings: 1 school is Very good, 15 Good and 8 Acceptable; 2 have no rating yet. No school here is rated Outstanding, Weak or Very weak. All 24 ratings date from 2023–24, the last full cycle before KHDA's inspections paused.
• At this stage, 5 schools list a 2026–27 fee below the figure KHDA approved; the table shows both.

Of the 26 schools, 17 follow the British curriculum, 5 are Indian CBSE, 3 American and 1 Pakistani. Al Twar is British only; the CBSE and Pakistani schools are all in Al Qusais and Al Nahda. If the curriculum is already decided, this section says which page to open next.

British

Seventeen schools follow the British curriculum: 6 in Al Qusais, 6 in Al Nahda and 5 in Al Twar. Each group is listed with map and fees: British curriculum schools in Al Qusais, British curriculum schools in Al Nahda, British curriculum schools in Al Twar. The city-wide fee table is British school fees in Dubai 2026–27.

Indian CBSE

Five schools follow the Indian CBSE curriculum: Amity School, Crescent English School, The Millennium School and Woodlem Park School in Al Qusais, listed at Indian CBSE schools in Al Qusais, and The Central School in Al Nahda, on the Al Nahda page. All five are on the CBSE board's register; KHDA's directory records them as «Indian».

The Al Qusais CBSE page uses Grade 1 as its stage, so its fee range differs from the KG2 figures in the table. All five run the April-to-March school year; see «Dates and applying» below. Every CBSE school in Dubai is at Indian CBSE schools in Dubai, and their Grade 4 fees and KHDA ratings are in one table: CBSE school fees in Dubai, 2026–27.

American

The three American-curriculum schools are all in Al Qusais: Al Maaref American School, American International School and Dubai National School – Al Twar. They are listed with map and fees at American curriculum schools in Al Qusais.

Pakistani

One school, H.H. Shaikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistani School in Al Qusais, follows the Pakistani curriculum and the April-to-March year. Its page is linked in the table; the map on the home page filters by any curriculum.

What each system means, which exam it ends with and how a child moves between them: Choosing a curriculum in Dubai.

Routes are set by each school and its operator, so this page repeats only what each school's own website says. Of the 26 schools, 15 say something about transport: 5 publish the areas they serve with prices, and one lists its routes without prices.

The other 11 schools' websites did not describe their buses when we read them on 22 September 2026; some of them do run buses, so ask the school's admissions team.

Each card gives the school's own words in summary, with the page it came from. Pages were read on 22 September 2026; routes and prices change from year to year, so confirm with the school before you sign a tenancy.

The five schools that publish their zones and prices

The school that lists its routes

Schools that describe their service without listing zones

What this tells a family choosing where to live

Each of the five published zone lists includes Al Qusais or Al Nahda Dubai, and each also reaches into Sharjah: a flat on either side of the border is within the stated bus reach of several schools here. Al Diyafah High School and Deira Private School say in plain words that a seat depends on availability, so ask for written confirmation before you rely on it.

Transport prices across Dubai, from the Fees Fact Sheets: Other costs; for 2026–27 the typical range is AED 5,500 to AED 9,225 a year across 200 schools.

A family on the edge of one of these areas often has a school next door closer than one across the cluster. The hub pages list the areas within 10 km, nearest first, by straight-line distance between the schools of the two areas compared.

Al Nahda is 1.4 km from Al Qusais, so its list is nearly the same; it is on the Al Nahda page.

Four are worth a look for a family comparing addresses: Muhaisnah has 13 schools and is within 4.3 km of all three areas; Deira and Hor Al Anz are the older districts towards the Creek; Al Garhoud, with 9 schools, is on the airport side of Al Twar.

For an address you already have in mind, Schools near where you will live shows the nearest schools from an area or a landmark.

Two school years run side by side here. Twenty of the 26 schools follow KHDA's August calendar for 2026–27: 31 August 2026 to 2 July 2027, 185 school days (187 at American International School). The 5 Indian CBSE schools follow the Indian year and the Pakistani school the same April-to-March year: 6 April 2026 to mid-March 2027, 182 days, with last days between 17 and 23 March.

A family arriving in summer therefore joins a CBSE school part-way through its year, and a child moving between an April-start and a September-start school can land in a different year group: check Which year group is my child in? with both dates.

The breaks on the schools' KHDA calendars:

• October: 14 of the August-start schools pause from 12 to 16 October 2026. Al Maaref American School breaks from 12 to 14 October, Capital School from 12 to 18 October, American International School and Apple International School from 14 to 16 October, and Deira Private School on 15 and 16 October; MSB Private School's calendar shows no October break.
• The April-start schools show no October break.
• Winter: 14 December 2026 to 1 January 2027 at the August-start schools; check each school's own calendar.
• UAE National Day: 2 and 3 December 2026.

Each school's own calendar is on its page; every school's dates are in Dubai school calendar 2026–27, and the city-wide picture is at Calendar.

Admissions work the same way in all three areas: the school checks the year group by age, and from Grade 1 / Year 2 by the last school's transfer certificate. Most schools then run their own assessment and keep a waiting list; the steps are in Applying to a Dubai school. Each school's page here gives its fee schedule and inspection reports.