The Number Game: How Grades Are Changing in Jeddah's Schools

• A Fair Rule for Everyone

Imagine if every soccer game had different rules. That would be confusing! In the same way, percentage grades are like one set of rules for all schools in Jeddah and across Saudi Arabia. Whether you go to a public school or a private school, a percentage grade means the same thing.



This is very helpful for the Ministry of Education. It helps them see how students are doing in math in Jeddah compared to students in Riyadh. If many students are getting low scores in a subject, the Ministry knows which schools might need more help or better books. It’s like a map that shows where to build new roads.

• Getting You Ready for the Big Leagues
  

When you get older, you will go to middle school, high school, and maybe even university. All of those places use percentage grades. Your grades in high school will decide which university you can go to.



By using percentage grades now, your school is helping you practice for the future. It’s like training for a big race. You are learning how to understand what a 90% means and how it is different from an 80%. This makes the move to higher grades much less scary.

• Keeping Everyone in the Loop
  

Have your parents ever logged into the "Noor System"? This is a special website where they can see your grades, your attendance, and even what the teacher wrote about you.



Percentage grades make this very clear for parents. A number is easy to understand. They can quickly see if you are doing great in science or if you need a little extra help with Arabic homework. This helps your parents be a bigger part of your learning team. They can cheer you on when your grades are high and help you study when they see a grade that is lower.

• The Rote Learning Problem
  

A long time ago, many schools in Saudi Arabia focused on "rote learning." This is a big phrase that means memorizing facts just to pass a test, without really understanding them.

Percentage grades can accidentally make this problem worse. If everyone is focused on getting a high score, you might be tempted to just memorize the answers for the test. After the test, you might forget everything!



But Vision 2030 doesn’t want you to just memorize. It wants you to understand. It wants you to ask "why?" and "how?" It wants you to be creative and solve new problems. If you are only worried about the number grade, you might not want to ask creative questions or try difficult problems where you could make a mistake.

• Too Much Pressure!

Jeddah is a big city with many great schools. Sometimes, this can create a lot of competition. Students might feel they must get a 95% or higher to be successful. Parents might feel pressure if their child’s grade is lower than their friend’s child.



This pressure can even affect teachers. Sometimes, because everyone wants high grades, a teacher might feel pushed to give a grade that is a little higher than what a student really earned. This is called "grade inflation." It’s like getting a trophy just for showing up. It feels good for a minute, but it doesn’t help you get better at the game. If you get a high grade you didn’t really earn, you might think you understand something when you actually don’t.

• The Grade Doesn’t Tell the Story
  

Let’s say two students both get a 75% on a social studies test:

• Student A didn’t understand one of the main ideas. He got all the questions about that idea wrong.
• Student B understood all the main ideas perfectly! But she was rushing and made small mistakes on five different questions.
  

The percentage grade is the same—75%—but the stories are very different. The number alone doesn’t tell the teacher what went wrong. It doesn’t tell Student A which idea he needs to restudy. It doesn’t tell Student B that she needs to slow down and check her work.

A number gives a score, but it doesn’t give directions on how to improve.