First, a quote from our previous comments about NAIS.

“Juilliard’s Performing Arts provision is, for many, unequalled and certainly indicative of subject breadth. Nord Anglia’s language provision at least equals the best schools in Dubai.  And, tellingly, we have never left the school after a visit being left less than impressed. Investment is significant and ongoing – and school leadership and governance outstanding. It’s a genuinely fabulous school – but the demands we make – and standard of competition in this category, are exceptionally high…”

Nord Anglia Education, as a group, places a fundamental focus on the provision of a broad Performing Arts curriculum in association with the world-renowned Juilliard School. This was the first of its kind collaboration between an educational group and a highly regarded Performing Arts school.  The Juilliard-Nord Anglia Performing Arts Programme has been specifically designed for Nord Anglia to give students a deep engagement with performing arts – promoting cultural literacy, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration.

All students experience music, dance and drama and they form an important part of the curriculum from the age of four through to middle school. Nord Anglia Dubai students are exposed to a music repertoire hand selected by Juilliard, one designed to span the gamut of musical history to offer breadth across a full range of cultural and music genres.  

Each category is exemplified by a corresponding core work such as Ambush from Ten Sides, a traditional Chinese pipe solo, or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and extension works for further exploration. The works have been chosen based on their iconic quality, teachable moments and to give breadth to each child’s musical learning.  Students study these works throughout school to give them a deep engagement and appreciation with each piece. Interactive activities encourage students to engage with the works and key concepts while developing connections between the pieces, as well as other subjects.  

The music curriculum is enhanced through the teaching of keyboard skills, introduced at age 5, which acts as an entry point for music theory learning and is used as a tool to teach basic skills such as reading, music notation and understanding harmony.  A highlight of the programme is the arrangement of visits by Juilliard teaching artists who provide Master Classes to Nord Anglia students and staff.

Nord Anglia International School is recognised, and promotes itself, as offering a highly academic environment for its students and is openly selective in its approach.  That such a school, with such clearly-stated high academic ambition, should so unequivocally incorporate music into its curriculum, and as a requirement for all students, speaks to us of the school’s overall commitment to provide the broadest possible support for students to fulfil their academic potential.  

Bottom line? Nord Anglia International School Dubai is leading the way in the provision and development of musical excellence – and the additional benefits that have been proven to support students across the academic board.  

It is on visiting NAIS that all this come alive. 

Nord Anglia is a school that founds itself on music and the broader Performing Arts. It lends the school a sense of joy and life utterly dependent on this integration of music within the curriculum, and at such a foundational level. It is not possible, perhaps,  to scientifically address and determine the academic impacts of a school rooting its education of children in music and the broader Performing Arts, but the success of children here is self-evidently deeply rooted in this meshing of music, feeling and thought within children and their school environment. 

For us, this commitment/passionate belief in Music as a hub subject within the curriculum, the school’s investment in the relationship with Juilliard, and the closest possible meshing of music within both the cultural and academic life of the school and its children, demonstrates just how far Nord Anglia Dubai is leading the way in the provision of Music in the UAE. 

For academic children gifted, or otherwise in Music, this is a school that shines. Students graduate with an ability to go beyond expressing considered views on Music, to being passionate about those views. Hugely indicative of a cultured, well-rounded education, little wonder that students consistently stand out in university applications for their cross curricular knowledge and breadth of study. For accomplished musicians, the offer is, of course, even more profound with gifts both discovered and nurtured to their fullest potential.

The Backstage Interview