Former Collège du Léman head Pauline Nord takes over at SISD in Dubai

Pauline Nord has taken over as principal of Swiss International Scientific School in Dubai (SISD) this term. Nord Anglia Education, which owns the school, announced the appointment in February 2026, with Nord starting in August 2026. She follows Ruth Burke, principal since 2021.

Nord arrives from Collège du Léman in Geneva, a day and boarding school where she was Director General for seven years. Nord Anglia says she spent more than three decades in Swiss and international schools, starting out as a maths and PE teacher and boarding house tutor before working up through deputy principal, head of primary and academic director roles at Collège du Léman. Over that time, the group says, she ran a wide spread of qualifications: the IB Diploma, the Swiss Maturité, the French Baccalauréat and an American high school diploma with Advanced Placement, as well as an integrated bilingual programme she helped build in Geneva. Her degrees, according to Education Middle East, are in primary education from the University of Edinburgh and international education from King's College London.

Nord Anglia has said it expects her boarding background to strengthen SISD's boarding programme, though it has not set out any specific changes.

The school she inherits

SISD opened in Al Jaddaf in 2015 and joined Nord Anglia in July 2023, becoming the group's second Dubai school alongside Nord Anglia International School Dubai. At the takeover the group put enrolment at about 2,150 pupils, including around 100 boarders. Education Middle East's February report gives more than 2,900 pupils from over 100 nationalities, so the school has grown by roughly a third in under three years.

On its Prospectus page, SISD is an all-through IB school for ages 3 to 18, teaching the Primary Years, Middle Years, Diploma and Career-related Programmes. Up to Grade 10, families choose between an English-only track and English–French or English–German bilingual tracks. Boarding starts at age 11.

Fees run from AED 62,900 (about US$17,100) for the youngest children to AED 118,400 (about US$32,200) all-in for the top year in 2026/27. That puts SISD above 14 of the other 15 Dubai schools we list, where the median top-year fee is about US$28,000. Only GEMS World Academy, at about US$33,600, costs more for the final year. Of the city's IB schools, SISD and GEMS World Academy are the two that run all four IB programmes on one campus; Dubai International Academy Emirates Hills offers the IB continuum for considerably less, at up to about US$21,700.

What it means for families

A change of head rarely changes much in a school's first term, and Nord Anglia has not announced any changes to curriculum or fees with this appointment. What families can reasonably read from the choice is where the group wants SISD to go. It has picked someone whose career has been in bilingual teaching and boarding, the two things that set SISD apart from most Dubai schools, rather than a head from a British-curriculum background.

For families already in the city, including Emirati and long-resident families weighing a bilingual IB education, the French and German tracks are the reason to look at SISD over cheaper IB options. It is worth asking the school how those tracks will run under the new principal, and whether bilingual teaching continues beyond Grade 10 in any form.

For families moving to Dubai, especially from Switzerland, France or Germany, SISD is one of the few schools where a child can keep up a second language through the middle years, and one of the few with boarding from age 11, which can help when one parent travels or a posting is short. The cost is a top-year fee above almost every other school we list in the city, and a school that has grown fast, so ask about class sizes and how places in each track are allocated.