ADEK Rating 2026: Tiers, Fees, and What to Tell Parents

If your school’s tier changed in the 2025-26 cycle, or is about to, parents will see it on the plaque at your entrance and in the Rayah app before most administrators have finished drafting an explanation. The ADEK rating in 2026 is Irtiqa’a (also spelled Irtiqaa), the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge’s biennial private-school inspection score, published on a six-tier scale from Outstanding down to Very Weak. It is a separate mechanism from the UAE attendance-policy notification duties and from the 2026 literacy mandate schools have already had to explain to parents this year. Irtiqa’a is an inspection outcome, assessed against six standards and 17 performance indicators under the UAE Unified School Inspection Framework. The same entrance plaque also carries the National Identity Mark, which measures something different ADEK School Performance Plaques, and ADEK described a Wellbeing Mark as a future addition to the plaque as of June 2025 ADEK Media Centre.

The ADEK school rating tiers in 2026, and what changes with each one

The rating that matters to a parent walking past your entrance is one of five in practical use: Outstanding, Very Good, Good, Acceptable, or Weak (Very Weak exists on paper but had zero schools in it at last count). Two consequences attach directly to the tier: how much you’re allowed to raise fees next year, and whether Emirati-student enrolment is restricted.

Tier	2025 distribution (204 schools)	Max annual fee increase*	Enrolment status
Outstanding	13 schools (6.4%)	up to 3.94%	No restriction
Very Good	51 schools (25%)	up to 3.38%	No restriction
Good	93 schools (45.6%)	up to 2.81%	No restriction
Acceptable	42 schools (20.6%)	up to 2.25%	Restricted until improved
Weak	5 schools (2.4%)	up to 2.25%	Restricted until improved

*Fee caps are calculated jointly with SCAD via the Educational Cost Index and tied to rating tier Abu Dhabi Media Office. This figure is from an April 2023 release. It is the only source found for the exact percentages, and it recurs unchanged in later secondary reporting, but it has not been independently reconfirmed against a 2025 or 2026 primary document, so treat the numbers as directionally current rather than freshly reissued.

Schools rated Acceptable or below face enrolment restrictions on Emirati students until they improve, a consequence ADEK states directly alongside the ratings themselves ADEK Media Centre, corroborated by Gulf News. ADEK frames the overall picture as encouraging: 77% of Abu Dhabi’s private schools now sit at Good or better, which it describes as “delivering what is to all intents and purposes a really good education for their students” ADEK Media Centre.

Two ADEK inspection results sets for 2025-26: don’t mix them

Two different numbers are attached to “ADEK rating 2026,” and they answer different questions. The table above is ADEK’s own 1 October 2025 release: the complete 204-school picture. Separately, WhichSchoolAdvisor has been tracking the 2025-26 re-inspection cycle as it happens: the cycle is being re-inspected in tranches, and its tracker (updated 14 July 2026) covers the first 43 newly-inspected schools WhichSchoolAdvisor. That is a partial, in-progress picture from a schools-news site, not an ADEK release, and it should not be read as a new sector-wide distribution. The two sets should be cited separately, not merged.

What the partial tranche does show clearly is movement. Repton School Abu Dhabi moved from Very Good to Outstanding. Al Manhal International Private School moved from Good to Acceptable. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Bangladeshi Islamia Private School moved up from Weak to Acceptable, while Alia International Private School moved the other way, from Acceptable to Weak WhichSchoolAdvisor. Each of those is a plaque changing at a specific school, on a specific day, with a specific set of parents finding out.

What is reported alongside an Irtiqa’a inspection rating change

Coverage of the 2025 cycle names both directions of movement and the factors reported alongside each. Bateen World Academy, Sheikh Zayed Private Academy for Boys, and Sheikh Zayed Private Academy for Girls all moved from Very Good to Outstanding; a 23-school cohort moved from Acceptable to Good, which the outlet framed as the standout result of that cycle SchoolsCompared.com. On the same reporting, leadership stability, qualified teaching staff, facilities investment, and international benchmarking against GL Assessment and TIMSS results are the factors associated with schools moving up.

Movement downward is reported alongside different factors. Dar Al Uloom Private School’s drop to Weak was reported alongside 60% staff turnover; Al Manahel Private School’s drop to Weak was reported alongside roughly 75% of students assessed as well behind expected levels SchoolsCompared.com. These are journalistic attributions drawn from inspection commentary, not findings from a controlled study, so they should be read as what was cited alongside the change rather than as proof of what caused it.

Fee level doesn’t explain a top rating either. Among the 13 Outstanding-rated schools, fees span roughly Dh26,200 to Dh105,980 (a four-times spread at the same top tier). Merryland International School sits at the low end (Dh26,200–Dh46,220) and holds Outstanding; Cranleigh School sits near the top (Dh71,500–Dh105,980) and holds the same rating The National. A top rating is not simply a function of price.

What communication can’t do

None of this makes parent communication the lever that moves a rating. The factors reported alongside upgrades and downgrades are leadership stability, qualified teaching staff, facilities condition, and whether attainment is actually being monitored, not how well a school explains itself afterward. A school with weak communication and strong leadership can still earn Outstanding; a school with excellent communication and high staff turnover can still drop to Weak. What communication does control is how a rating, earned or lost on the factors above, gets understood by the people reading it off a plaque or a phone screen with no other context. That is a real and useful job. It is not the same job as earning the rating.

What to tell parents, and when

Before the inspection window

Parents already know inspections happen: ADEK has told them directly to check plaques when visiting schools and to use the website or Rayah app for detail ADEK Media Centre. Silence in the run-up just means they form an opinion from the plaque alone, with no context from you.

In practice: two to three weeks before an expected inspection (check where your school falls on the Abu Dhabi school-year calendar so the timing lands before, not during, a break), send a short bilingual Arabic/English notification (80-100 words) from the principal, stating that ADEK’s Irtiqa’a inspection is scheduled or underway, what it assesses, and when results are typically expected. No promises about outcome.

The day the rating is confirmed, whichever direction it moves

Parents should hear it from the school first, not notice a different plaque at pickup or a headline in a schools-news roundup.

In practice: the day the result is confirmed, send a 120-word bilingual Arabic/English announcement from the principal stating the new tier plainly, one or two concrete things the school is doing in response (a named initiative, not a vague commitment), and where to find the full inspection detail. For a downgrade, add the timeline for re-inspection and the specific gap being addressed; for an upgrade, credit the staff and named initiatives that reporting associated with the change, without overclaiming causation you can’t verify at your own school.

Ongoing, once the plaque is up

The rating stays visible at the entrance and in Rayah indefinitely, so a one-off message isn’t enough if anything changes in how it’s discussed publicly: a new schools-news ranking, a parent forum thread, a comparison a prospective family brings up at enrolment.

In practice: keep a standing FAQ entry in the parent handbook and re-share it once a term through the same app or messaging channel families already use for other school notices, so the explanation is where parents look rather than something they have to ask for.

A purpose-built parent-communication platform makes each of those three moments easier to execute consistently: bilingual announcements that reach every parent rather than whoever checks a noticeboard, targeted notifications instead of one blast to everyone, and a documents area where the fuller explanation lives once the initial message has landed. BeeNet is one way to run that workflow: announcements and targeted notifications in Arabic, English, and French from one screen, with parent-teacher meeting scheduling and a documents library for the detail a 120-word message can’t carry. If your school is heading into a re-inspection window, it’s worth seeing that workflow before you need it: book a BeeNet demo.

The next Irtiqa’a re-inspection cycle for your school is coming regardless of whether you prepare for it. The plaque will change or it won’t, and either way parents will see it. The only real question is whether they hear it from you first, or work it out from the entrance hall on their own.

References

1. ADEK Media Centre. “Abu Dhabi Private Schools Demonstrate Steady Improvement, Strengthening Parent Confidence in Quality Education.” 1 October 2025. https://www.adek.gov.ae/Media-Centre/News/Strengthening-Parent-Confidence-in-Quality-Education
2. ADEK Media Centre. “Abu Dhabi Private Schools to Display Performance Ratings - What Every Parent Needs to Know.” 16 June 2025. https://www.adek.gov.ae/Media-Centre/News/Abu-Dhabi-Private-Schools-to-Display-Performance-Ratings
3. ADEK. “School Performance Plaques.” Programme page, fetched 25 September 2026. https://www.adek.gov.ae/Programmes-and-Initiatives/School-Performance-Plaques
4. WhichSchoolAdvisor.com. “ADEK: Abu Dhabi School Inspections 2025-26, The Complete List.” First published 12 March 2026, updated 14 July 2026. https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-news/adek-abu-dhabi-school-inspections-2025-26-the-complete-list
5. Abu Dhabi Media Office. “ADEK outlines framework to enhance academic excellence of private schools in Abu Dhabi.” 11 April 2023. https://www.mediaoffice.abudhabi/en/education/adek-outlines-framework-to-enhance-academic-excellence-of-private-schools-in-abudhabi/
6. Gulf News. “13 schools in Abu Dhabi rated ‘Outstanding’ and 5 rated ‘Weak’.” 1 October 2025. https://gulfnews.com/uae/education/13-schools-in-abu-dhabi-rated-outstanding-and-5-rated-weak-1.500290930
7. SchoolsCompared.com. “ADEK: 13 Abu Dhabi Schools Outstanding & 23 Rise to Good. Best Schools REVEALED.” 1 October 2025, updated 2 October 2025. https://schoolscompared.com/uae/news/adek-13-abu-dhabi-schools-outstanding-23-rise-to-good-best-schools-revealed
8. The National. “Abu Dhabi’s 13 best-ranked private schools and how much they charge.” 21 July 2025. https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uae/2025/07/21/mapped-out-abu-dhabis-13-best-ranked-private-schools-and-how-much-they-charge/