What School Is Really Like In Saudi Arabia: Honest Insight From A Local Parent
I was folding my 10-year-old daughter’s navy blue puffer school jacket last Wednesday night when my phone pinged with a comment on the weekend baking reel I’d posted to my small parenting account. The comment read: “hihihihi i am saudi ask me anything bout our schools” and right under it, 17 other comments from parents in the US, Canada, and the UK asking all kinds of questions I’ve gotten a hundred times before. Most of them are rooted in secondhand headlines or outdated stereotypes, so I figured I’d answer the most common ones here, the way only a mom waiting for homework to get finished can.
I’m a Saudi mom of two living in Riyadh, and my kids have both gone to our local public school since they were 4. My older son is 14 in eighth grade, my daughter in fourth. If I had to sum up the biggest surprise for most people reading this, it’s that most of our daily school life looks a lot like yours, just with a few key differences shaped by our culture and climate.
The number one question I get is whether it’s true that school is only half a day here. That’s correct, for most public schools anyway. Elementary runs 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., middle and high school starts at the same time and ends around 1 p.m. The original reason for this is practical: by midday in most of the country, summer temperatures hit 105°F and higher, so kids get home before the worst of the heat sets in. Even in winter, midday is the warmest part of the day, so the schedule stuck.
Most afternoons are free for family time, extra activities, or tutoring if kids need it. My son stays after twice a week for school football practice, my daughter goes to art club one afternoon a week. I’ve talked to a lot of visiting teachers from North America who say this schedule leaves kids far less burnt out than the full 8-hour days they’re used to back home. The downside is real, though: for working moms who don’t have extended family living with them or can’t afford after-school care, the half day is a huge struggle. A lot of families I know end up switching kids to private full-day schools if both parents work, which is way out of budget for most.
The second most common question is whether girls and boys go to separate schools. For public schools, yes, starting in first grade. All elementary, middle, and high schools are single-gender. Private international schools are usually co-ed, but that’s not the norm for public education. I get asked all the time if this hurts kids’ social development, and I can only speak from what I see with my own kids: they interact with cousins, neighbors, and friends of the opposite gender all the time outside of school, at birthday parties, park trips, and weekly family gatherings. My son goes to co-ed youth group at our local mosque every Friday, and I’ve never seen him struggle to talk to girls his age.
What I have noticed is that through middle school, when kids are dealing with puberty and all the self-consciousness that comes with it, there’s a lot less pressure to perform or impress each other. My son’s math teacher told me last year that boys are way more willing to ask for help with tricky problems when there’s no girls around to tease them, and I’ve heard the same from my daughter’s teachers about girls participating more in science class. That’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference for how much kids participate when they’re young.
People always want to know how much religion is in the curriculum, too. We do have one 45-minute Islamic studies class every day, and daily Arabic class, but the rest of the schedule is identical to what you’d find anywhere else: math, science, social studies, English, art, PE. My daughter brought home an Islamic studies project last month that asked her to interview a neighbor about how they give back to their community, not just memorize verses. It was a nice project that got her talking to people outside our family, and I didn’t think anything of it until an American friend told me she’d never seen that kind of project in religion class back home. Social studies covers Saudi history, of course, but also world history and global politics, same as any other country.
Homework is another big surprise for most people. Elementary kids get 30 to 45 minutes a night, max. My 14-year-old gets an hour and a half most nights. That’s way less than I hear from parents in the US whose middle schoolers are getting 3 hours a night. The catch is that if you want your kid to get into a top public university here, they have to score well on a national aptitude test, so most parents send kids to after-school tutoring that adds 2 to 3 hours of extra study a week. That costs around $130 a month, which is a big chunk of the average salary here, so it’s a big source of stress for working-class families.
For parents and teachers reading this who don’t live here, there are two small concrete things you can take away from how our system works. First, if your kid is showing signs of burnout from a packed full day and hours of homework, try cutting one non-essential after-school activity a week to leave space for unstructured time with family or just playing. That’s the biggest benefit of our shorter schedule, and you don’t have to live in a hot climate to make that small change. Second, if your middle schooler is quiet in class and seems hesitant to participate, ask the school if they offer any single-gender breakout groups for core subjects. A lot of kids just need a little space from the social pressure of co-ed classrooms when they’re going through puberty to speak up.
Our system isn’t perfect. Class sizes are big, 35 kids to a class in most elementary schools, so kids who struggle with learning differences don’t get as much one-on-one help as they need. We’re still working on that, and it’s an ongoing issue. But it works for a lot of our families, and it’s interesting to see what other places can learn from our approach. I still have my daughter’s puffer jacket half-folded on the couch as I finish this, and her math worksheet is crumpled on the kitchen table next to a half-eaten date cookie. Kids complain about homework, teachers grade papers late, parents stress about college, same as anywhere. That’s the part no one talks about in the headlines, anyway.
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