How a School in Dubai is Using Exact Path Pilot Results to Scale Learning Growth

Before Star International School, Mirdif (SISM) expanded its use of Edmentum's Exact Path, its leaders partnered with Edmentum for a 2024–25 pilot to get a clear understanding of what kind of implementation would be most effective and answer implementation questions that schools are often left to guess on their own. Exact Path produced growth in every group that used it, but the pilot also provided deeper insight into how the school can optimize its use for maximum learning gains, and the pilot identified which conditions produced the greatest gains.

Key Takeaways for Schools and School Groups:

• Exact Path works best when it’s embedded into learning
  The strongest growth occurred when it was used both in lessons and for homework. Year 7 illustrates that clearly, and the broader pilot findings reinforce the value of consistency. Edmentum's research across other schools shows the same pattern: students who complete more skills see stronger growth, and SISM's pilot data reflects it locally.
• Skills mastery and diagnostic growth are interconnected
  The report found a positive relationship between the two, indicating that growth is tied to both exposure and actual progress through students’ learning paths. Exact Path's Impact Reporting shows this relationship in real time.
• It’s critical to maintain momentum throughout the year
  When student focus drops or early momentum is not sustained, it can result in weaker gains later in the year, an important implementation lesson for any school thinking beyond the first phase of a rollout. Exact Path includes engagement supports such as Race to 8, challenges, and badges that help sustain that momentum, supporting the benchmark of 8+ skills mastered per semester being linked to the strongest growth.
• Personalization is a key pillar
  Student and teacher feedback about personalization was positive, and in a school environment where learners often need different levels of support and pacing, that kind of feedback is important.

Teachers Needed to See Where Each Student Required Support

During the 2024-25 school year, Star International School, Mirdif (SISM) piloted Exact Path with students in Years 5-7, looking at student growth across those cohorts and examining how different implementation approaches influenced diagnostic progress and learning outcomes. 

SISM piloted Exact Path, whose diagnostic assessments identify each student's skill gaps, then build a personalized learning path around those skills. Teachers also get ongoing data on student progress, so they can monitor growth and adjust instruction without waiting for the next round of testing. 

Year 7 students using Exact Path in class and for homework grew +81, compared with +54 for homework-only use and +61 for no use at all. Other year groups showed the same pattern. Based on the findings, the school recommended expanding Exact Path to Years 3-8 in 2025-26. 

Star International School sits within Edmentum’s work with the International Schools Partnership, which is set to bring Exact Path to 120+ schools and more than 115,000 students across 25+ markets worldwide.

 The partnership aligns with ISP’s five pillars of learning:

• Academic achievement
• Multilingualism
• International opportunities
• Future pathways
• Life competencies

Here is what SISM’s pilot revealed about what strong implementation looks like in practice and how local evidence can help to shape a wider expansion. 

This Pilot Answered Several Questions

What makes this pilot unique is that it clarified which conditions appeared to support better results. Rather than deploy Exact Path as a uniform experience, they used it differently across student groups, answering key questions that often come up with expansions:

• What happens when a solution is used in class and at home, rather than in one setting alone?
• What does student growth look like when some classes use the solution and others do not?
• How are outcomes impacted when implementation is less structured across classrooms?

How the Exact Path Pilot was Conducted

Year 7 students were divided into three groups:

• Some only completed the benchmark assessments and did not use Exact Path beyond those checkpoints
• Some used Exact Path for homework only
• Some used Exact Path both in class and at home

Year 6 followed a more straightforward structure.

• Some classes used Exact Path
• Some only completed the benchmark assessments

Year 5 was the least structured of the three.

Use was more flexible, and not every class completed the same set of diagnostics. Although Year 5 doesn’t offer a clean comparison, it does show what happens when implementation is less consistent across classrooms.

Results: Students using Exact Path consistently showed stronger growth, particularly when the program was integrated into both class instruction and homework.

The Most Embedded Model Produced the Highest Growth

Exact Path appeared most effective when it was built into both classroom learning and homework. Of the three Year 7 approaches, that blended model delivered the highest gains, with total growth of +81.0 from Diagnostic 1 to Diagnostic 3. By comparison, the group that only completed diagnostics without using Exact Path grew +61.7; the homework-only group grew +54.2.

• Homework-only use showed some benefit, but not as much as classroom-plus-home use
• Students who only completed diagnostics showed growth, but less than the blended-use group

Years 5 and 6 Results Also Supported the Case for Broader Use

Classes using Exact Path posted total growth of 55.73, while classes that did not use Exact Path and only completed the diagnostics posted total growth of 51.31. The Exact Path classes started slightly lower and finished at nearly the same final average, which means they closed the gap while achieving slightly stronger overall growth.

These findings may not show a massive separation between groups, but they show that classes using Exact Path were able to make more progress over time.

Year 5 results were more mixed among subgroups named after planets. Saturn showed total growth of 52.4, Mars showed 51.7, Mercury showed 37.8, and Neptune showed 24.3.

Because Year 5 implementation was more flexible and some classes completed different assessments, those numbers don’t provide a clean conclusion the way Year 7 does, but it does underpin what the other groups showed: the strongest and clearest results appeared where Exact Path use was more consistent and more intentionally embedded into learning.

“Exact Path allows us to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and give students learning that responds to their individual needs,” said Clive Gibson, Assistant Principal for Educational Technology and Lab School Lead at SISM. “We have seen a clear relationship between consistent engagement, skills mastered, and improvements in diagnostic outcomes. Most importantly, it gives our teachers actionable data to target support and gives students a genuine sense of progress and success.”

That Growth Led the School to Move Toward Expansion

The school used the pilot to learn, then used those lessons to shape the next phase, taking into account that Exact Path can scale from a single-school pilot to a full rollout across many classrooms. Having identified what worked best, SISM decided to implement a full-scale rollout across Years 3-8 in 2025-26. The recommended next steps included:

• Deeper use of Exact Path in lessons and homework
• Stronger teacher engagement with data
• Usage targets based on skills mastered
• Continued data collection to better understand impact

SISM’s pilot showed that Exact Path produced gains in every group that used it. It also showed them how to maximize those gains by understanding the conditions that create the most successful learning ecosystem and carrying those conditions forward. They now have a clear and actionable roadmap for improving learning outcomes at scale, and that will benefit their students today and into the future.