The Telegraph – International Baccalaureate: is it any good? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/10017618/International-Baccalaureate-is-it-any-good.html 

In the recent Telegraph article about the IB, Jon Cartwright asks the question “is it any good”? The clear answer is ‘yes’.

Cartwright points out that the new “Advanced Baccalaureate” backed by Gove is “remarkably similar” to the IB. More than that, the new A-Bacc is simply cannibalizing the Diploma. In addition to the traditional 3 A Levels, this new qualification just tags on an Extended Essay substitute, requires a CAS-like series of projects and includes a poor TOK imitation. What no other “baccalaureate” is offering, however, is the programmatic cohesion of the IB.

The various components of the IB are united in their focus on developing a consistent set of learning skills and dispositions codified in the IB’s Learner Profile. The IB is a coherent vision of what education is about, not a checklist of separate exams.

In addition to providing coherent breadth, Cartwright shows that the evidence suggests learning in the IB gives as much depth as in A-Levels. The research from the Department of Education shows that there is no disadvantage in terms of preparation for degree courses for students studying a broader range, and in some cases this is an advantage.

The article quotes an undergraduate as arguing that the educational system shouldn’t be ‘forcing [students] to continue with things they may hate’. It is a particularly English approach to education that at 16 students are expected to limit themselves in terms of what they learn. The rest of the world’s educational systems expect their 18 year old school-leavers to be literate, numerate, able to engage linguistically with other cultures and also familiar with the scientific underpinnings of the modern world. For subjects students don’t take on to A Level, do we really believe that GCSE can be the minimal benchmarks which our young people should be striving to reach?

The IB has offered a consistent vision for 40 years, it has experienced no grade inflation and its curriculum and assessment is driven by educational professionals, not ministers keeping an eye on the next election.

King’s College London Lowers IB Offers

Sevenoaks is delighted to see KCL’s recent move towards a lower overall minimum IB admissions requirement.  Over the last 10 years the KCL offer has steadily increased from 32 to 39 points for the 2013 intake.  This trend is something seen across the UK universities. 

KCL’s Principal Professor Sir Rick Trainor explicitly links the broad interdisciplinary learning of the IB with a number of interdisciplinary courses at now at KCL adding that IB students bring a “great sense of energy, determination and diversity” which is well-suited to both the single honours and multidisciplinary degrees.

The new offers stand at 35 overall points with 766 in HL subjects.  The shift in the overall point score is a move in the right direction and we applaud KCL for its recognition of the ability of students at this score: these would fall within the top 20% of the world IB cohort.

Coverage of the KCL move to a fairer minimum requirement:

• KCL website: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/newsevents/news/newsrecords/2013/03-March/Kings-reviews-its-position-on-International-Baccalaureate-.aspx
• April Edition of the Independent Schools Magazine: http://www.independentschoolsmagazine.co.uk/resources/April2013+ISM+Web1.pdf
• IB’s Press Release : http://www.ibo.org/ibaem/news/documents/KCLIBrelease210313.pdf

The debate about the relative merits of A Level and IB has been in the news quite a bit recently and our Head Katy Ricks has offered her take on the issues in an article in The Independent.

“The impact of the IB on a school is liberating and motivating. It fosters a shared purpose and common ethos; it brings students and institutions around the world in touch; it validates the belief that there is no limit to intellectual endeavour. Our students prove this daily – they are getting into the world's top universities, are moving onto employment with relative ease – to the delight of their parents. Employers worldwide know that IB students know a lot, and more, can do things.”

So while, as Garner says, “controversy rages about Mr Gove’s exam reforms”, schools that are confident enough to take on and stick with the IB quietly move forward, preparing our students for a world needing well educated and globally minded citizens.

Sevenoaks Group 4 Project

Cambridge University Press has just released “Introducing the IB Diploma Programme” and our own Mr Graeme Lawrie, Head of the Faculty of Science and Technology, introduces the Group 4 Project, the collaborative and interdisciplinary project in which all IBDP students participate. His chapter also includes a case study of Graeme’s Sevenoaks Group 4 Project which he has been developing. This project brings together schools and their students from across the world to collaborate, giving schools with few resources, IB students or a limited choice of science subjects the opportunity to work with more well-established schools. In some cases, Sevenoaks students studying a particular language were paired up with students who speak that language to help further embed the cross-curricular learning and global-mindedness inherent in the IB.

International Baccalaureate - 'It teaches you not to give up'

Russ Thorne writes in the Independent on Thursday 14 February about students who have taken on the challenge of a broad curriculum and are succeeding. This is one of the most important aspects of the IB.

But two points must also be made.

Firstly, the IB is not about breadth for the sake of breadth, a misrepresentation of the IB made by some advocates of the traditional A Level programme. The IB is about taking a broad but concerted approach. The students don’t simply study more subjects alongside one another. The programmatic aspect of the IBDP allows students to develop meaningful cross-curricular links, so that the benefits of studying Mathematics and Science are built upon in the learning of Psychology or Geography and the cultural and linguistic understanding acquired while studying a second language helps students interpret English literature or understand the global influence in Economics. Simply taking more A Level subjects juxtaposes disparate subjects. The common learning objectives and cross curricular links within the IB subject specifications, however, don’t leave those connections to chance. Students are actively engaged in developing them throughout their IB experience.

The second crucial point the Independent article points towards, is that the traditional choice at 16 to study only certain subjects can confuse “the desire to specialize” with “the desire to avoid”. In most cases, students avoid subjects when making A Level choices rather than actively specialise because they love a subject. It’s an educational structure that institutionalises the limiting belief that if we don’t like a subject, we ought to be able to drop it. This, as most of us recognise, is a belief that will only limit our engagement with the world, not prepare us for it.

Growth in the IB

The IB has updated its growth figures to incorporate the May 2012 exam session, showing that the various programmes continue to grow across the world. 

• In the last year, 317 new IB World Schools have been authorized to deliver IB programmes.
• Over a five year period the number of IB world schools has increased by 44%, from 3,007 in 2008 to 4,333 in 2012.
• The number of students globally enrolled for exams on the IB’s prestigious Diploma Programme increased by 7% in 2012...
• supporting a 38% increase in the last 5 years, from 95,170 in 2008 to 131,365 in 2012.

What the data suggests is that the perception of the IB as relatively unfamiliar around the world is simply no longer true. At Sevenoaks School we have been committed to the educational vision of the IB for over 30 years and continued success rate at university entry (90% for first choice over the last two years) clearly demonstrates that universities understand the excellent education that the IB provides. The IB is proactive in managing this growth, incorporating more on-line training for its teachers and implementing an electronic marking system to allowing examiners across the globe to maintain a high level of reliable and valid assessment.

Data Sources

The Herald Online
http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/01/23/4562141/international-baccalaureate-poised.html

IB Organization
http://www.ibo.org/facts/schoolstats/growth.cfm

The UK Office of Qualifications and Exams Regulation has released its long-awaited report comparing various qualifications including the IB against A-Levels. The IB Diploma comes out favourably, being recognized as a good preparation for university study. Sevenoaks School will be using this report in its continued discussions with University Admissions officers, who are well aware of the skills our IB students bring to university and the likelihood of our students excelling at university.

The International Baccalaureate’s press release is here:

http://www.ibo.org/ibaem/news/documents/Ofqualreport10May2012.pdf

There have been two recent articles in The Guardian about Ofqual’s concerns over A-Level exams, one commenting on how they are getting easier and another expressing concern over the apparent grade inflation.

We have pulled together some data on the lack of grade inflation in the IB. The data clearly shows the consistent value of an IB qualification.

The first graph, presented to IB schools by Julian Metcalf, the University Liaison offer at the International Baccalaureate Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA) (http://www.ibsca.org.uk/) compares the average UK IB score over the last 21 years (red) with the last 16 years of average A Level points (yellow).

We have compiled a list of percentages for IB scores at 38, 40 and 42 points of all IB candidates across the world. Sevenoaks’ average IB result for 2011 was 39.9 and in 2011 over 60% of our students received grades over 40.