Qatar International School

QIS was founded by Sheikh Ali bin Ahmed bin Thani Al Thani and the first Principal, Mrs Joyce Griffin, in 1977, making us one of the first British International Schools in Qatar.

Since then, we have changed and grown significantly – including a move to our current location of Al Dafna in 2001. Indeed, from very small beginnings almost 50 years ago, QIS has now grown into one of the largest and most prestigious schools in the country, with around 2,000 students on role.

In 2015, the school received the highest possible grading from the Qatar National Schools Accreditation programme, when inspected by the country’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

Then, in 2020, QIS achieved two highly prestigious international accreditations:

Firstly, QIS was judged to be ‘outstanding’ in every category of the UK government’s British School Overseas (BSO) inspection framework – only the third school in the world ever to have achieved this.

Secondly, in the same year, QIS became the first school in the world to be awarded Council for International Schools (CIS) accreditation by a new fast-track process for outstanding schools. The final CIS report included over 100 individual commendations and helps to make us one of the most highly regarded educational establishments in the region.

QIS recently became the only school in the Middle East accredited to deliver OLEVI training courses straight from the UK, such as The Outstanding Teacher’s Programme. The school also partners with many other world-renowned training providers to ensure cutting-edge best practice. We are proud to say that quality training for staff is part of the QIS culture.