Saifi High School
Marg, 348, Ibrahim Rehmatullah Rd, Bhendi Bazaar, Bhuleshwar, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400003, India
http://saifihighschool.in/
Saifi High School is an independent co-educational day school in Downtown Beirut that serves approximately 850 students from Nursery through Grade 12. Established in 1981 by the prominent Makhzoumi family on a quiet side-street off Rue Clemenceau, the school was created first to provide Lebanese families with an English-medium education that nevertheless retained strong Arabic roots and strong civic values. Four decades later it has grown into one of the capital’s most recognizable private schools, distinguished by its sky-blue uniforms, cedar-green emblem, and insistence that every graduate speak, write and think confidently in Arabic, French and English.
Academically, Saifi follows the Lebanese national curriculum for mathematics, Arabic and history, the British IGCSE programme for science and English, and selected Advanced Placement (AP) courses for Grade 11-12 students aspiring to North-American universities. Class sizes rarely exceed 24, and the teacher–student ratio stands at 1:9 owing to a full-time staff of ninety-three faculty members, half of whom hold graduate degrees from institutions in the United States, France or the United Kingdom. A hallmark of the school is its vertical “Tri-Literacy Pathway”: Nursery to Grade 5 emphasize balanced immersion, Grades 6-8 introduce secondary grammar and literature in the third language, and Grades 9-12 require parallel coursework leading to the national Baccalauréat and three external language proficiency certificates taken in May of each year.
Beyond academics, the three-storey sandstone campus harbors specialized robotics and physics labs, a 200-seat black-box theatre, rooftop greenhouse, maker-space equipped with 3-D printers and laser cutters, and an art wing that features a kiln and dark-room. Athletic facilities strain the tight urban footprint yet include a semi-Olympic rooftop pool, basketball court and a mirrored dance studio. Thirty-two interscholastic teams compete under the nickname “Phoenixes” in football, basketball, swimming, track, rugby and table-tennis leagues across the Lebanese School Sports Federation.
Service-learning permeates school life. Each student completes a yearly “Civic Portfolio”: Nursery pupils adopt neighbourhood trees, Elementary classes partner with municipal recycling plants, Middle Schoolers design STEM solutions for refugee camps, and High-Schoolers must log 120 hours of community service certified by Beirut NGOs. Grade 12 students also mount an annual “Capstone Fair” where year-long social-impact projects—such as solar-powered water kiosks, Braille signage mapping, or coastal-glass replanting—are presented to potential donors and academics.
Annual tuition ranges from USD 5,000 in Nursery to USD 9,700 in Grade 12, with needs-based scholarships covering up to seventy-five percent for qualifying families. The school is governed by a nine-member board and led since 2017 by Dr. Hala Nsouli, an alumna and Columbia Teachers College graduate whose tenure has overseen the introduction of mindfulness and conflict-resolution electives, a 1:1 Chromebook programme, and secure “Safe Corridor” agreements that protect student passage through adjacent neighbourhoods during heightened tensions.
With its trilingual ethos, inner-city resilience, and insistence that academic rigor must serve Lebanon first, Saifi High School remains a deliberate microcosm of what its founders hoped Lebanon itself could still become: inventive, rooted, and undeniably forward-looking.
Check on Google Maps
- Published: August 11, 2025
