Schools allowed early summer break

The school summer vacation will start from 3/8/1435H, corresponding to June 1, according to a circular issued by the Ministry of Education to all schools. Khaled Al-Ghamdi of the ministry said the schools can announce summer vacation for students from June 1. Earlier the ministry circular had said that the summer vacation will start from June 19.
Many international and Saudi schools started their final exams on Sunday, especially for kindergarten, so as to complete the current session by May end or first week of June.
School authorities came under tremendous pressure from parents and teachers to close the schools early because of MERS coronavirus scare. But the ministry didn’t relent and ordered them to create a special room with equipment and doctors to meet the coronavirus threat.
The schools are conducting annual exams according to their academic schedule for small children but some said that they started the exams for all the grades to finish it at once.
“We started exams of kindergarten (KG) and grades 1 to 3 according to our academic schedule and instruction of the ministry to finish them on time, as now its examination time for all schools, and many of the international schools started their exams for lower grades as well as higher grades today,” said Sadia Kalim, principal of Al Hukma International School.
She said that their academic year will end in the first week of June as per their earlier plan.
Hera Talib, a parent, told Arab News that Wadi International School also started exams for all the grades on Sunday. For higher grades they used to start late but this year they are taking all the exams at once to be on the safe side and finish all together by June 3.
Sahar Khan, a teacher, said that in her school the children of KG and grades 1 to 3 are already on vacation after finishing their academic session. From next week, exams for higher grades will start and the school will close on June 6 for summer vacation.