Al Rowad International Schools Riyadh

A large, long-established Saudi-owned school in Al Nuzha that runs both American and British tracks from KG to Grade 12 across roughly 5,500 students.

Founded in 1999 and led by Yusuf Ashworth, Al Rowad is COGNIA-accredited and offers Cambridge, Pearson Edexcel, Oxford AQA and AP routes alongside its US Common Core programme. Fees of about SAR 20,800 to SAR 29,800 keep it firmly in the mid tier, and the student body draws from more than 50 nationalities.

Parents praise the kindergarten and primary section for caring teachers, balanced English and Arabic instruction and visible progress in the early years. The harder feedback clusters around the upper school. Older facilities, worn furniture and tired classrooms come up regularly from Grade 7 onwards, and bullying in the girls' section has been a recurring concern for a meaningful number of families. Newer arrivals tend to like it more than long-tenured parents who have watched the upper grades over time.

• Reviews split sharply by audience. Some parents lean positive, naming the Islamic atmosphere, Arabic-English balance and what one parent called dedicated teachers across an eight-year run. The same school carries a sharply negative aggregate score on a separate tracker, with the gap driven by student voices.
• Ex-students describe the buildings as visibly old, with rusted walls and broken climate control. One student wrote that bullying is widespread in the girls' section.
• Parents flag administrative friction and over-crowded classes. One parent said their daughter's class felt like a public school in size and attention.
• Multiple older Arabic-language reviews from parents allege physical punishment of students, including teachers slapping pupils. Worth raising directly at admissions.
• The school operates separate male and female campuses and serves a large, mostly Saudi parent body of 5,000-plus pupils across 58 nationalities. Curriculum is split between American and British streams.