CLIENT: Samra Dune Schools Group🇦🇪UAE

Sabbura - School Management System for a Group of Eight Private Schools

School Management System for an Abu Dhabi School Group

Designed and built a clickable school management system for a group of 8 private K-12 schools in Abu Dhabi: a school dashboard that tracks today's registers, student records with custody restrictions and medical alerts, attendance follow-up through a fixed intervention ladder, and fee invoices with sibling discounts and VAT per fee line.

Scope of Work
Product design, UI build and clickable demo
Industry
Education / School Management
Enterprise
Compliance & Certifications
ADEK policiesUAE PDPLUAE VAT

Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.

Impact

5 Screens
Clickable end to end

School dashboard, students, a student profile with 10 tabs, attendance follow-up and invoices with the invoice panel. Every student in the demo opens a profile.

4 Stages
Attendance intervention ladder

A guardian alert at 08:45 when a student is absent without a reason, then letter 1 below 95% or at 3 unauthorised days, a meeting below 92%, an attendance plan below 90% and referral per ADEK procedure.

3 Tiers
Sibling discounts on tuition

5% for the second child, 10% for the third and 15% from the fourth, on tuition only, eldest first. Tuition lines are zero-rated, while uniform and activities carry 5% VAT.

29 Students
Realistic demo data

19 families, 15 staff, 24 invoices, 15 absence alerts, 10 attendance interventions, 6 behaviour incidents, 2 custody restrictions and 3 medical alerts at one British-curriculum school.

The Problem

Samra Dune grew by buying schools, and each school kept its own tools: two different student information systems, spreadsheet timetables, a paper register in the youngest classes, fees in the accounting package and bus lists in WhatsApp groups. The group office could not see persistent absence or fees owed across schools without asking eight registrars for spreadsheets, custody restrictions lived in a folder in the principal's office, and every regulator data request took a registrar about a week.

Our Solution

Sabbura is one system for the group's 8 schools, about 9,500 students and 1,100 staff. It holds the student record with guardians, custody restrictions and restricted medical notes, takes attendance period by period and chases every absence to a reason, bills fees as approved per grade and year, and prepares the data ADEK asks for, in Arabic and English.

The Challenge: Eight Schools, One Set of Rules

The group's schools teach three curricula (British, IB and the UAE Ministry of Education), are licensed and inspected by ADEK, and look after children whose records hold some of the most sensitive data a school keeps.

Restrictions Nobody Could See

Where a court order or a guardian's instruction limits who may collect a child, the school must follow it. The orders sat in a folder in the principal's office, so a new receptionist had no way to know who could not take a child home.

Sensitive Data About Minors

Every student is a minor or was one when their record began. The UAE PDPL generally treats health data as sensitive, so medical, custody and child protection details must reach only the roles that need them, with every view logged.

Absences Chased by Hand

Schools must record attendance and follow up absences in line with ADEK's attendance policy. With registers on paper and in two systems, the group could not say which students were persistently absent or who was chasing them.

Fees Under Approval and VAT

Tuition fees and increases in Abu Dhabi are generally subject to ADEK approval, and the UAE charges 5% VAT while tuition is generally zero-rated. Each fee needs its approved amount, its VAT treatment and the family's sibling discount applied in the right order.

Our Approach: From School Rules to a Clickable System

01

Spec and Rules Research

Mapped 14 staff roles from group executive to bus supervisor, 49 screens across the staff console and a mobile-first teacher app, and the data model for students, guardians, restrictions, medical profiles, attendance marks, interventions, fee structures, invoices, bus runs and regulator exports. Wrote down the rules the design follows: ADEK policies on records, attendance, protection and fees, the UAE PDPL, UAE VAT and each school's curriculum framework.

02

Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit

Built 5 key screens for one British-curriculum school on a production dashboard kit: the school dashboard with today's registers and the principal's work, the students list with a quick view, the student profile with restriction and medical banners, attendance follow-up with reason recording and a drag-and-drop board by intervention stage, and invoices with generate, issue, reminder and credit note actions. All actions run on local state.

03

What a Production Build Adds

The group dashboard, enrolment, timetable, gradebook, report cards, transport, staff, regulator exports and the teacher app, plus full right-to-left Arabic layout. Staff sign-in with Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace and optional UAE PASS, card payments through Network International or Checkout.com, the accounting ledger, SMS, email and WhatsApp, bus GPS feeds, UAE-hosted data and an append-only audit log of every sensitive view and change.

Why It Works: The Right Detail for Each Role

Restrictions Travel With the Child

A red Restriction chip follows the student everywhere they appear, and the profile shows the banner written for staff in English and Arabic, such as "Do not release to father. Call the office." The court order itself sits on a tab the spec limits to the child protection lead, principal and registrar.

Medical Alerts Without Medical Records

The nurse chooses a short alert to share, such as a severe nut allergy with the EpiPen's location, while conditions, allergies and medication plans stay with the nurse and principal.

Every Absence Gets a Reason

Follow-up splits absences into awaiting reason, guardian not reached, below threshold and resolved, with the client's policy shown on screen. Recording a reason uses fixed codes, from illness to unauthorised, and moving a student up the ladder keeps an owner and a next review date.

Invoices That Show Their Working

The invoice panel lists each fee line with its VAT treatment and rate, each sibling discount by tier and every payment allocated. A credit note needs a reason, and fees are stored as approved per grade and academic year.

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