In my country grades are largely meaningless. Universities only accept based on final exam scores. You won't find a single company that will even consider asking about grades. University grades maybe, but even that is rare.

I used to get a lot of good grades as a byproduct of attending classes and studying. As soon as I was near the finals, and coincidentally when classes were online, I stopped attending (or muted Teams), and just spent that time preparing for exams.

Thanks to this I got scores way above the average. Most of my teachers didn't even mind, and agreed with my approach. I happened to have some very good teachers in high school.

I still don't understand why a lot of kids' parents pushed them for good grades. All it did was get them worse exam scores, with no benefits.