Hey Kiwibird - we are also from Auckland with an offer at hand for Doha but facing the same schooling issues. Our kids go to a great state school here, so I feel nervous about shifting them to something that might not be so good - very hard to glean information from the very limited websites. I keep hearing about Newton but know little about Compass as it's that much more expensive - do your friend's friends think the extra money that this school costs represents value and is it worth the spend over some of the others. Thnx - let me know.