How I Found a Reputable International Cambridge School in Riyadh: Tips From An Expat Parent
It was 10:17 p.m. on a Tuesday in May, my half-warm karak chai had gone sticky around the rim, and I was 12 pages deep into Google search results for “help me find an international cambridge school in riyadh”. My 14-year-old son, Sam, was at football practice an hour away, and I’d just gotten an email from his current small international school: half the secondary department teachers would not be renewing their contracts for next year, and the principal was moving back to South Africa. Sam was due to start Year 10, the first year of his IGCSE coursework, and we needed a stable Cambridge program fast—we move every three to four years for my husband’s energy job, and Cambridge qualifications are the only ones that transfer cleanly whether we end up back in the U.S., the UK, or anywhere else in between.
I’d already gone through three expat Facebook threads, where half the comments said the top-tier schools near the Diplomatic Quarter were overpriced and overcrowded, and the other half swore by new programs that hadn’t even had their first cohort graduate Year 13. I’d bookmarked 17 school websites, all with glossy photos of football fields and state-of-the-art science labs, but none that answered the questions I actually cared about.
My friend Lina, who’s taught secondary biology at a Cambridge school in Riyadh for six years, stirred her za’atar croissant at a sourdough bakery off Olaya Street that Saturday and told me to stop looking at the campus photos. She gave me three specific questions to ask every school, no exceptions. First, ask for the full average IGCSE and A-Level results from the last three years, not just the scores of the top 10% of students. A lot of schools advertise their highest grades to draw families in, but they don’t tell you how the average student is doing. Second, ask what percentage of full-time classroom teachers have been at the school for more than two years. High turnover is normal for expat teaching contracts, but if more than a third of the staff is new every year, your kid will be adjusting to new teachers mid-coursework constantly, which is a disaster for exam-based programs like Cambridge. Third, if your kid has any learning needs—whether that’s dyslexia like Sam, or extra help with English as a second language—ask to speak directly to the head of support services before you even put in an application, and ask what a typical week of support looks like, down to how many minutes of one-on-one time they get and whether it’s included in tuition.
First I went to the top-advertised school off King Fahd Road, the one everyone on the expat circuit talks about. The marketing lead gave me a tour, and when I asked for full three-year results, she said they only published the top scores on their website, and couldn’t share the full data with me for “privacy reasons”. When I asked about teacher turnover, she laughed and said “we get new teachers from the UK every year, it keeps things fresh!” Sam’s dyslexia support? They said they had a SEN department, but couldn’t promise more than one group session a week, and it would cost an extra 10,000 riyals a year. I left that tour knowing it wasn’t the right fit, even though it had the big name and the Olympic-sized pool.
Next I tried a mid-sized accredited school in North Riyadh, about 20 minutes from our house, that I’d only found because someone mentioned it in a small expat group for parents of kids with learning differences. When I emailed to book an open house, I got a reply back from the principal herself, not the marketing team. She had the full three-year results printed out for me when I arrived: 67% of their Year 11 students got A-C in all core subjects over the last three years, which is right on par with the average for UK state schools, exactly what we needed. When I asked about teacher turnover, she pulled up a quick sheet: 72% of their secondary teachers had been there for more than two years, because they do three-year contracts instead of two, and help teachers get their spouses set up with work permits to keep them longer. She even walked me over to the SEN coordinator’s office mid-tour, introduced me, and we sat for 15 minutes talking about Sam. The coordinator said he’d get two 30-minute one-on-one sessions a week, included in tuition, and they’d adjust his exam timing for IGCSEs like he needed. That was all I needed to hear.
I asked if I could come back the next week during a regular school day, just to sit in on a Year 9 class and see how things ran. They said yes, no questions asked. I sat in the back of an English class, and there were only 18 kids, compared to the 28 I’d seen at the big name school. The teacher stopped by every student’s desk to check on their essay drafts, and when one kid said he didn’t understand the assignment, she sat down with him for five minutes to walk through it, instead of telling him to ask after class. That sold me.
A lot of parents I talk to now ask how I found it, because it doesn’t show up at the top of Google ads, and it’s cheaper than the big name international schools by almost half. I tell them the first mistake most of us make is assuming the most well-known school is the best. I also tell them that it’s non-negotiable to check that the school is fully accredited by Cambridge International, not just “offering Cambridge courses”. I have a friend whose daughter did two years of IGCSE at a small unaccredited school in Riyadh, and when they moved to Dubai last year, the new school didn’t recognize any of her credits, so she had to repeat Year 10. That’s a mistake that’s easy to avoid: just check the official Cambridge International school directory to confirm the school is listed, before you even book a tour.
Sam started at the school back in August, and it’s not perfect. Last month, his geography teacher left three months into the term because her husband got a job transfer to Abu Dhabi. But the school had hired her replacement a full month in advance, and she came in to shadow for a week before the old teacher left, so the transition was way smoother than I expected. Sam just got his first unit test back last week, he got a B, which is the highest test score he’s gotten in three years. He says he doesn’t have to raise his hand and wait 20 minutes for help anymore, because the classes are small enough that the teacher checks in with everyone every day.
We still don’t know if we’ll be in Riyadh for another two years or another five, and Sam still struggles with reading longer texts some days. But his coursework is all on the Cambridge framework, it’ll transfer wherever we go next, and he’s happy right now. I went into this search stressed out, convinced I had to find the “best” school in the city to give my kid a good education. Now I know that the right international Cambridge school in Riyadh isn’t necessarily the one with the biggest marketing budget or the fanciest facilities. It’s the one that answers your specific questions, fits your kid’s needs, and keeps good teachers around long enough to actually teach them.
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