- Principal's blog series
The power of the founding team
March 31, 2026
- Principal's blog series
One remarkable Thursday
Dan Clark
August 17, 2026Share this article
Help others discover this content
It would not be accurate to say that it has been a quiet (almost exactly) six months since I arrived in Dubai to lead the most exciting school project in the UAE. Even in this context, last Thursday 13 August stood out as a day of significance and moment. Three quite different things happened over the course of that day and, taken together, they told me a great deal about the school we are so close to opening.
The team takes shape
The first was, on the surface, the least dramatic, and yet perhaps the most important. Thursday was the first day our senior team came together for extended planning. For months, so much of the work of founding a school happens in ones and twos: Teams calls, quiet conversations, careful plans, decisions taken and revisited. To have the senior team gathered in one room, heads bent over the same shared task, was something else entirely. You could feel the school beginning to take on a life of its own.
Our purpose for the two days was simple to plan and harder to do: to turn a group of talented individuals into one aligned founding team. We agreed the vision, values and handful of non-negotiables we can each articulate in the same words. We set a safeguarding-first tone for all that follows, walked the building together, and worked through an honest, colour-coded review of our readiness, naming owners and dates on the critical path to opening. We even rehearsed the opening Monday (codename: QE DAY), so that day one of our school’s history lands, before ending, as any good team should, with dinner together.
On Monday 17th our full team arrives for two weeks of induction. We have shaped the fortnight as a story told in chapters, a day at a time: Building Our Legacy, Teaching as a Craft, Culture as Character, Curriculum as Pedagogy and The QE Experience, before a second week on assessment, community and wellbeing. There will be a live link from QE Barnet, when Headmaster Neil Enright will speak to our 450 years of heritage, and it closes as it should: with our team meeting their first students and their families in person at our QE Family Connect event on 27 August.
A proud day for our founding school
The second piece of news arrived from four thousand miles away. Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, our founding school, was ranked first in the whole of England for A level outcomes. Number one. It is an extraordinary achievement, built patiently over many years by exceptional teachers and hardworking students.
For us here in Dubai, it is far more than good news from a sister school; it is a glimpse of the standard we intend to carry with us. Queen Elizabeth’s School, Dubai Sports City is not a copy of QE Barnet, but it shares its DNA: the same belief in academic ambition, the same conviction that every child is capable of more than they imagine, and the same insistence that genuine warmth and the highest standards belong together. To see that ethos ranked first in the country, on the very day our founding team came together, felt like no coincidence at all. It is the inheritance we are proud to build upon.
I hope it offers our founding families a quiet reassurance, too. When you choose a brand-new school, you place your trust in a promise rather than a track record, and Thursday was a reminder that the promise has deep roots: the people and philosophy behind QE Barnet’s success are the very same ones shaping your children’s school here in Dubai.
And, as it happens, a birthday
There was a third event on Thursday 13th August, though I mention it with a little hesitation. It was also my birthday. I will spare you the number. I had imagined a gentler pace, and possibly a quiet slice of cake. Instead I spent it in a planning room with my senior team, refreshing the page for news of the A level results, and I would not have swapped it for anything (and there was cake!)
Past, present and future, all in a day
Looking back, I was struck by how neatly the three threads wove together. Our founding school, reminding us of what is possible. Our new team, gathering to make it possible here. And, somewhere in the middle, a small reminder that all of this is built by people, with their own lives, families and, occasionally, birthdays. Past, present and future, captured in a single Thursday.
Two weeks from now, our team will be ready. Not long after that, our children will arrive. If Thursday 13th August was anything to go by, it is going to be quite a year.
Until next time,
Dan Clark
Table of Contents
Categories
Principal's blog series Innovation Education
You May Also Explore Our Other Blog Posts
Discover more insights and stories from Queen Elizabeth's School
principal's blog series
Our nursery, a home from home
Due to very strong demand, we opened a new class in our nursery earlier this month. We were so pleased to do so; the youngest children stand to benefit as much as any from the smallest classes and attention from expert teachers that are the hallmarks of a QE education.
There is something uniquely exciting about a nursery: children taking their first steps into formal education, and often their first steps away from home. Every great school journey, however far it travels, begins with a single, small, brave first day.
Dan Clark July 29, 2026
principal's blog series
More than a blazer
This week, our school uniform shop opened its doors. On the surface, that is a practical milestone. Families need uniforms; schools need a uniform supplier; these are the nuts and bolts of opening a school. It was for me a moment of genuine realisation: we’re opening a school, soon!
Dan Clark July 21, 2026
principal's blog series
Our first report card
As we count down the weeks to our opening in August, I am delighted to share a significant early milestone: Queen Elizabeth's School, Dubai Sports City has completed its first formal review with COBIS, the Council of British International Schools, the leading accreditation body for British schools overseas.
Dan Clark July 07, 2026