Help Me Find an International Cambridge School in Riyadh: Lessons From My Relocation
It was 10:30 pm at our kitchen table in Dubai, three years ago, when I realized finding an international Cambridge school in Riyadh wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. Lego bricks dug into my thigh through my jeans, my coffee was cold, and my husband and I had just crossed a fifth school off our list. It claimed to be a fully accredited Cambridge school on its glossy homepage, but a deep dive into the fine print revealed it only offered Cambridge A Levels for sixth form, nothing for our 10-year-old starting upper primary and 14-year-old heading into Year 10. We’d already committed to the Cambridge pathway after my oldest did his lower secondary at a school in Dubai, and switching curriculums that close to IGCSEs felt like unnecessary stress for him.
We got the transfer notice three months prior, had to be in Riyadh before the next school term started, and all the advice we found online was either generic or written by marketing teams for big, expensive international schools. We decided to fly in for a long weekend to tour schools in person, because photos never tell the whole story. First tour was at a well-known school out by the Northern Ring, the kind that advertises its 50-meter pool and equestrian center on Instagram. The admin drove us around in a golf cart, showed us the shiny new auditorium, but when we asked to sit in on a Year 10 class, they said we could only look in the “demo classroom” they used for tours. When I asked how many teachers had more than five years of experience teaching Cambridge IGCSE, the head of admissions gave me a vague answer about ongoing training. Then when we got the fee sheet, it was 128,000 SAR per kid per year, way over what my husband’s relocation package covered. We left that tour hungry and underwhelmed.
Second tour the next morning was at a smaller school closer to the city center, advertised as an affordable Cambridge option. The campus was split across three old villa buildings, the playground was a patch of concrete next to the entrance parking lot, and when I asked to see their Cambridge accreditation certificate, the admin said they were still a candidate school, hoping to get full accreditation in two years. That was a no-go for us: we needed my oldest’s transcripts to be recognized by UK universities when he applied in two years, and candidate status wasn’t enough.
By that point, we had one more tour on the schedule, a mid-priced school out in the Diplomatic Quarter that a friend of a friend had told us about, and we almost canceled it because we were tired and frustrated. I’m glad we didn’t. When we got there, the admin didn’t have a fancy golf cart or a pre-planned route. She gave us a map, said we could wander around on our own for 20 minutes after the official tour, and told us to stop any teacher or student we saw and ask whatever we wanted. We peeked into a Year 9 class, where kids were working on their Cambridge checkpoint projects: small groups, some editing posters about climate change, the teacher sitting on a desk with two students walking through their research, no one rushing to put on a show for visitors. My oldest, who’s shy, asked a passing student what the art program was like, and the kid walked us all the way over to the art room to show us his portfolio, instead of just pointing down the hall.
We sat at a small shawarma place down the road after that tour, wiping tahini off our hands, and both knew this was the right one. We put down the deposit that night, because the admin warned us the Year 10 waitlist was three deep, and we didn’t want to lose the spot.
That whole search taught me a lot of things no marketing blog tells you about looking for a Cambridge school in Riyadh. The first thing I tell other parents now is to start with the official Cambridge International school directory, not Google search. Anyone can put “accredited Cambridge school” on their website, but the directory on Cambridge’s own site lists only fully accredited schools, filtered by city and by which stages they offer (primary, lower secondary, IGCSE, A Level). Before you even book a tour, cross off every school that’s not on that list, and every school that doesn’t offer the full pathway your kid needs. I can’t tell you how many hours we wasted on schools that only offered Cambridge for one key stage, when we needed it all the way through to 12th grade.
Second, ask for the average class size for your specific year group, not just the maximum size listed on the website. Most schools will say they cap classes at 25, but when demand is high, overcrowding is common, especially for popular entry points like Year 9 and Year 10. At our school, they told us straight away that Year 10 averages 22 kids, and they don’t overenroll, because Cambridge courses rely on regular one-on-one feedback for coursework, which you can’t do with 30+ kids in a class. That mattered more to us than a fancy pool none of our kids would use more than once a term.
Third, put your name on the waitlist of your top two choices as soon as you know you’re relocating, even if you don’t have your work visa yet. Most schools hold a small number of spots for relocating expats, but the waitlist moves fast. We know one family that waited until they arrived in Riyadh to apply, and ended up having to put their kid in a school they didn’t want for a year while they waited for a spot to open up.
It’s not perfect, of course. Our school doesn’t have an equestrian center, the canteen fries are always cold on Wednesdays, and the parking lot gets backed up at pickup every day. But all the teachers have been teaching the Cambridge curriculum for at least 5 years, when my youngest struggled with his primary checkpoint math last year, his teacher stayed back twice a week after school for extra help for no extra fee, and the guidance counselor already met with my oldest twice to start going through university requirements for his A levels next year.
We still get messages every month from other parents moving to Riyadh, asking how to find a good international Cambridge school. Most of the time, the right one isn’t the one that shows up first on your Instagram feed. It’s the one that lets you wander around, answers your questions straight, and prioritizes teaching the curriculum you need over fancy amenities. We’re still waiting to see how my oldest’s A levels go next year, and there’s always the chance we’ll run into snags with his applications. But so far, it’s worked out better than we ever expected when we were sitting at that kitchen table three years ago, crossing school after school off our list.
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