Imparting education is not only about completing the course in time and ensuring that students get good grades, but it is also about inculcating good habits in them and transforming them into responsible citizens.
Abu Dhabi is one such city, which emphasizes delivering excellent academic facilities. The city’s leading schools work hard to ensure that the students can avail cutting-edge educational facilities and career-development opportunities.
Liwa Education is an established educational leader recognized for providing accessible, high-quality education in the United Arab Emirates for the past three decades.
Its schools and nurseries across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain offer a challenging American curriculum education that combines the essence of Emirati values with a rich set of core competencies that produces confident, resilient, and courageous young leaders.
The students learn to develop an international mindset grounded in local values, understanding, and appreciation. It understands the need for agility and adaptability in an ever-changing landscape. Its graduating students are fully prepared to meet both national and global challenges, now and in the future.
Emphasis on Academic Excellence
LISM offers outstanding, exceptional, and inclusive American education that inspires students to be self-disciplined, international-minded, independent life-long learners. It aims to transform them into innovative leaders and critical thinkers. LISM prepares self-confident and socially responsible young adults for an evolving and changing world by applying a learning-centered approach.
Liwa International School – Al Mushrif closely follows the rigorous standards of the American curriculum while incorporating national agenda goals to promote meaningful contributions to society both now and after graduation.
Different Schools Under Liwa Education
Liwa is an established educational leader, recognized for providing an accessible, high-quality American curriculum education in the United Arab Emirates for the past three decades. Liwa Education, as a brand, has established many educational institutions to ensure the overall academic and career development of students. Some of the prominent schools operating under the group are as follows:
· Liwa International School – Falaj Hazza (LISF)
Situated at Al Ain – Abu Dhabi and established in 1992, this school has earned its reputation for providing learners with the highest quality educational experience. This means nurturing talents, fostering creativity, and empowering students to become critical thinkers and life-long learners.
·Liwa International School – Al Mushrif (LISM)
Located in downtown Mushrif, LISM offers a vibrant and holistic American education where students’ modern-day needs are understood and utilized in the learning process and where intellectual risk-taking is encouraged as much as a healthy, well-rounded lifestyle.
·Liwa International School for Girls (LISG)
Situated at Al Bateen, Al Ain – Abu Dhabi and established in 2016, LISG provides high quality, creative, and challenging international education, supporting young women to become future leaders through advanced arts and tech-focused learning and a broad, balanced extra-curricular program.
·Teddy Bear Nursery
Teddy Bear Nursery is a leading Preschool in Abu Dhabi where every child is given equal priority. It provides the highest quality of early years education and supports the child’s educational journey through discovery and exploration.
Founded in 2008 and located at Al Mushrif – Al Bateen – MBZ City – Al Shamkah, Abu Dhabi, it offers the Creative Curriculum© to infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and Pre-K children. It provides the children with the necessary tools and skills to develop confidence, creativity, and critical thinking skills.
The Erudite Spearhead
LISM has achieved major landmarks in the curricular and extra-curricular arena. This feat has been achieved by the school owing to the unwavering dedication of its Principal, Ms Margaret Haynes. She came to LISM from Liwa International School Al Ain in the summer of 2020. Ms. Margaret is a collaborative leader who believes that everyone is important for the school’s success and that everyone’s contribution is valid and valuable. To her, it is imperative that everyone is treated with respect, and that adults consistently model the behaviour and emotions they want the students to demonstrate.
As part of the Liwa Education group, she has built strong relationships with ADU to support the students as they move through high school. Ms. Margaret has a genuine commitment to working in partnership with parents and families. It is part of her philosophy that school is not a silo but succeeds when it builds a strong relationship with all involved in the development and education of a child.
Ensuring Sustainability in Education
LISM’s curriculum, aligned to California State Standards, the Common Core Standards, and Liwa Education competencies, is planned along a continuum from KG1 through to Grade 12. By spiralling skills, knowledge, and understanding across the grades and by identifying and addressing the crucial cross-curricular competencies, it ensures that the students first learn, then develop, and then master and apply important concepts. Through this approach, the school ensures that students continue to learn, at grade-appropriate levels, and build on prior knowledge as they do so.
Leading the Technological Front
From Grade 5 onwards, LISM’s students are provided with a Chromebook for their personal use throughout the academic year. Younger students have access to school-provided iPads. “Technology is integral to our life in the school both in terms of delivery through Google Classroom, allowing students and parents to access resources, assignments, and grades in real-time. Also, the use of integrated platforms such as Achieve 300, iRead, BilArabi, Study Island, and Exact Path provide individualized and personalized learning and development pathways for students,” expresses the management. The teachers gamify the learning through Kahoot, NearPod, and Quizzes, a technique guaranteed to engage students of all ages.
The school uses MasterConnect, an assessment program that is explicitly linked to the grade-related standards. This provides teachers with valuable information to inform and adapt their planning and delivery as well as providing up-to-date data for students showing them where they have mastered a skill and where they need to develop.
“Enquiry-based learning, and a thematic approach, further develops students’ learning skills and, again, ensures sustainability in learning,” expresses the management.
The teachers and support staff are the lynchpins of LISM. The school recruits high-quality staff whose values match those of the school. It invests in targeted professional development so that colleagues continue to grow and know that they are valued. This too impacts sustainability as it encourages continuity from year to year and subject to subject.
The Pandemic Dynamic
Covid-19 brought challenges to everyone, everywhere. The sudden shift to online learning in March 2020 necessitated the quick and comprehensive development of teaching and learning skills for teachers and students. Fortunately, LISM, as a non-textbook school, already had many platforms in place, and its students had the skills to use them. However, it was clearly a difficult time, and the school provided training and support for the whole school community – both initially and on an ongoing basis.
From August 2020, when families could opt to return face to face, LISM worked very hard to ensure that everything was ready for them. Every room is set up to adhere to social distancing guidelines, sanitizer is by every door, and masks are worn. The school engaged students in a competition to design information posters and guidance for display in the school premises and constantly reinforced and modelled the expected behaviours. Health and wellbeing sessions form part of the school’s curriculum to help students deal with the concerns that Covid-19 caused.
Online learning provided its safeguarding issues. To ensure the safety of its students, they had to have their proper anime as a screen name before they were admitted to a lesson and their cameras were on so that the authority knew who was there. Chat facilities were established to organize direct chat sessions between the teachers and the students, and lessons were recorded to allow asynchronous access.
Building a Pathway to Bright Careers
As LISM moves into high school with its first Grade 9 students this year, it continues to develop its relationship with ADU to allow them to gain a perspective from a university. Integrated career counselling lessons form part of its timetable from Grade 7. These are delivered by a well-qualified leader who has vast experience in preparing for tertiary education and alternative pathways into work.
Working collaboratively with its sister school, LISM provides webinars and seminars for students on careers and plans – presenters range from Liwa alumni to experts in their field.
Towards a Bright Tomorrow
Moving forward, LISM is committed to educating its students to the highest academic international standards, promoting critical thinking, collaboration, and an accelerated, learning-centered approach, within a strong school and parent community. It wants its students to be happy, well-balanced individuals who fulfil their potential in all areas of their lives, who are articulate, confident global citizens with a strong moral compass.
