UK Years vs US Grades: The UAE Conversion Table

Convert by age, not by the label on the last report card. In the UAE a child's year group is set by the age they reach by 31 December of the admission year, so a child turning 5 by that date starts Year 1 at a British curriculum school and KG2 at an American one, and a child turning 6 starts Year 2 and Grade 1 respectively. Year 1 is not Grade 1. FS1 and FS2 are the two Foundation Stage years before that, at 3 and 4, which other systems call Pre-KG and KG1. The offset is one year and it holds all the way up, so Year 7 sits with Grade 6 and Year 11 with Grade 10.

Four qualifications on the table itself. The age column is the age reached by 31 December of the admission year, which is the cut-off for schools whose year starts in August or September; schools that start in April measure the same ages on 31 March, which is the Indian curriculum case covered below. The first four rows are the federal chart, which KHDA reproduces for Dubai. The rows from Year 1 to Year 11 carry England's year-group names, which gov.uk pins to 5 and 15 respectively, but read here on the UAE's 31 December key rather than England's own, which is precisely why a September to December birthday shifts; the same caution applies to the English labels in brackets, which name the same stage and not the same set of children. The last two rows are that one-year offset extended through sixth form, which is convention rather than a published rule, and the table stops at Year 13 because school does.

Two labels cause most of the trouble. FS1 and FS2 are pre-school years, so a British school's Year 1 is the third year of schooling rather than the first, and Grade 1 is the fourth. Browse what each of those stages looks like in practice on our FS1 listing, FS2 listing and Year 1 listing, each filtered on the age range the schools themselves publish.

The rule that actually decides placement

The cut-off date moved. From the 2026-27 academic year the qualifying date is 31 December of the admission year, replacing 31 August, and the Ministry of Education set out the ages that go with it when it announced the change on 17 December 2025: three years old by 31 December for Pre-KG, four for KG1, five for KG2 and six for Grade 1. That decision is federal, and older material may still quote the previous 31 August date.

What the date does not settle is who wins when your child's last school placed them somewhere else. The clearest public answer is Dubai's, in guidance KHDA issued for parents in August 2026 and reported by Khaleej Times on 3 August 2026. Two rules run in it, and they point in opposite directions.

From FS1 to Year 1, age overrides everything. Age is the primary and overriding placement rule through the kindergarten years, and a child who has not reached the required age cannot be placed in that year group even if they are close to the cut-off or have studied that level elsewhere, as the Khaleej Times report of the guidance puts it. A term of FS2 abroad does not buy a place in Year 1 here.

From Year 2 and Grade 1 upwards, the transfer certificate leads. For those stages the transfer certificate from the previous school is the main placement reference, and where it disagrees with the UAE age-to-grade chart the school notifies KHDA before confirming the place. That is the mechanism that stops a mid-schooling move from silently costing or gaining a year, and it is visible on school admissions pages too: The Indian High School in Dubai, an April calendar school covered further down, places Grades 2 to 12 on the transfer certificate.

Both of those mechanics are Dubai's. The 31 December chart is federal, but KHDA regulates Dubai's private schools, while schools in Abu Dhabi answer to ADEK, which describes itself as the regulator of education in the emirate. We have not found a published ADEK equivalent of this guidance, so if you are applying outside Dubai, ask the admissions office which authority's placement process it follows rather than assuming the Dubai answer travels.

If your child is already in a UAE school, none of this reopens. The new rule applies to children registering for the first time. The ministry says it does not affect students already enrolled, who continue under the rules in place when they registered, and Dubai's guidance adds that children moving between schools inside the emirate keep the placement they have.

Two birth windows get a choice in 2026-27

Both are one-off, and each carries its own condition. Between them they cover the same four months, 1 September to 31 December, in two consecutive birth years: the months the old 31 August cut-off used to push into the following year. If your child was born in one of these windows, the placement is a decision to make deliberately rather than accept by default, because it sets the cohort they stay in for the rest of school.

• Born 1 September to 31 December 2021, and not eligible to enrol in 2025-26: for 2026-27 they may enrol in either KG1 or KG2, which is FS2 or Year 1 in British labelling. At a private school the decision depends on the school's assessment of readiness and on whether it has a place. Khaleej Times reported this window in its explainer of the federal announcement, not as a Dubai measure, though the ministry's own announcement does not set it out.

• Born 1 September to 31 December 2022, and not currently in any nursery or school: for 2026-27 they may be placed in either FS1 or FS2, decided between the family and the school on the child's readiness.

Note what the second window turns on: a child already in a nursery place is not in it. From 2027-28, per the same August 2026 report, the revised cut-off applies to all new registrations without this temporary flexibility.

Outside those windows, Dubai's published routes off the age line are specific, and the two directions work differently. Moving a child down a year takes four things together, per the guidance as reported: the school has provided sustained, documented, high quality support; a professional assessment confirms a significant developmental delay; the child still cannot access learning or faces a risk of harm; and KHDA approves the placement in writing. In the other direction the rule is lighter but not absent, since a placement more than one year above the age-appropriate level requires the school to notify KHDA before confirming admission. Either way it runs as a documented process rather than an informal request.

Arriving from the UK: the September to December problem

England defines a child's normal age group as the year group they would have been in had they entered school in the September following their fourth birthday, which is the government's own wording. That definition is what makes an English year group a 1 September to 31 August birth band.

The UAE now groups by the calendar year, because the qualifying date is 31 December. Put the two rules side by side and the effect is mechanical. Take two children, one born October 2020 and one born March 2021. In England they are in the same year group and both enter Year 1 this September. The UAE splits them: the March child turns 5 by 31 December 2026 and lands on the Year 1 line, the October child turns 6 and lands on the Year 2 line.

So a child born between September and December sits one year group higher in the UAE than in England, and a child born between January and August lines up unchanged. That is arithmetic from the two published rules, not a school policy, and above Year 1 it is not the end of the story, because the transfer certificate leads at those stages and the school reconciles the two. Raise it in the first admissions conversation, not after the offer.

The reverse move has the same shape in the other direction. A September to December born child returning to England from the UAE goes back into a cohort defined by the earlier boundary, so the English year group matching their date of birth is one below the UAE one they have been sitting in. England can admit a child outside their normal age group, but it is a request rather than a right: the admission authority decides, and the government's guidance, which is written around delayed entry rather than arrivals from abroad, is explicit that a refused request for delayed entry carries no statutory right of appeal. Put the question to the receiving school and the local authority before you accept a place, not after.

Arriving from the US

There is no single American date to convert from. Kindergarten entrance cut-offs are set state by state, which the Education Commission of the States still framed as a fifty-state comparison question in its June 2023 review of K-3 policy rather than as a national rule, so how far your child's US grade sits from their UAE year group depends on the state you left.

What is fixed is the destination. Take your child's age on 31 December of the year they would start, read the table, and expect the label to change as well as the placement: a child finishing Grade 5 moves into Year 7 at a British curriculum school, not Year 6. If you are also weighing whether to stay in the American system, the trade-offs are in our guide to British and American curricula in the UAE, and the two sectors are listed at British and American.

Indian curriculum: a different calendar, so a different date

Indian curriculum schools in the UAE have run an April to March academic year, and April-start schools use 31 March as their qualifying date rather than 31 December. That is still what the sector's own admissions pages say for 2026-27. The Indian High School in Dubai publishes Pre-KG at 3, KG1 at 4, KG2 at 5 and Grade 1 at 6, each measured on 31 March of the joining year and attributed to KHDA. The Indian Academy in Dubai publishes the same ladder and states plainly that the child must reach the minimum age before 31 March 2026, with transfers starting classes in April.

Two changes are moving underneath that. Indian curriculum schools in the UAE were told to move onto the Ministry of Education's unified academic calendar from April 2026, as Khaleej Times reported on 24 November 2025, and CBSE schools across the Gulf are moving to a new global version of the curriculum from the same month, reported by The National on 5 November 2025. Neither report sets out what the calendar change does to the qualifying date, and the two schools above still published a 31 March date for this year. So take the two dates as live alternatives: ask which month the school's academic year starts, and the qualifying date follows from it. Between 31 March and 31 December sit nine months of birthdays, which is a whole year group for some children.

The sector is listed at Indian (CBSE) schools.

What the entry stage looks like in the catalogue

Once you know which line your child is on, the question becomes which schools admit at that age at all, which is not the same as which schools exist. We count it from each school's own published age range, so a school that publishes none is not in these figures, and none of this says anything about whether a given school has a seat free.

The FS1 label on that panel is our shorthand for the age 3 intake. It counts every school whose published age range covers 3, whatever that school calls the year, which is the whole point of the table above.

Across the UAE, 243 schools publish an age range covering 3 and 281 an age range covering 4. The second number is larger, and the difference is schools whose published range opens at 4 rather than 3, so the age 3 list is the shorter one to work from. At that age the alternative is a nursery, and we list 69 of those, which matter here for a second reason: a nursery place counts as being enrolled, so it takes a child out of the 2022 birth window flexibility above. Browse them at nurseries. By emirate, 130 of the age 3 schools are in Dubai and 55 in Abu Dhabi.

Curriculum at that age is worth seeing before you fix on a label. Of the schools admitting at 3, 125 list the British curriculum, 56 the American one, 44 the IB and 38 the Indian one. Schools list more than one curriculum, so those groups overlap and do not add up to the total.

The same filter works further up the school: 284 schools publish an age range covering 11, the Year 7 and Grade 6 line, and 255 cover 15, which is Year 11 and Grade 10.

Twelve of the Dubai schools on that age 3 list, in catalogue order:

What to do this week

1. Find your child's line on the table using the age they reach by 31 December of the year they would start, or 31 March if the school runs an April year. Write down the year group and the grade, both of them, because different schools will ask you for different ones.

2. If your child was born between September and December, check the arithmetic against their current year group before you apply anywhere. That is where the mismatch shows up, and it is also where the two 2026-27 birth windows sit.

3. If they are entering Year 2, Grade 1 or above, get the transfer certificate started now. It is the document the placement rests on, and it comes from the school you are leaving, on their timetable rather than yours.

4. Ask each school on your shortlist which month its academic year starts, and confirm the qualifying date that follows from it. In Abu Dhabi, ask which regulator's placement process applies.

5. Shortlist on the stage, not the label. Start from the FS1, FS2 or Year 1 listing, filter by area and fee, and check the published age range on each profile against your child's date of birth. Fees step up with every stage, and our Dubai school fees guide breaks down what that means across the bands.