From the Head of School

The IB World Head's Conference

I am writing my post for this week from Dublin in the company of head teachers from around the world with at least one thing in common: we are all IB educators.  

There are 5700 schools worldwide that offer at least one of the IB programmes to over two million students in 159 different countries.  Every year, there is a global conference where IB schools get together to continue our conversations about education.

The IB is unique among education systems in being practitioner-based.  Its education programmes develop through academic research and dialogue with the teachers who implement the programmes.  You can be sure, whatever the merits of Rishi Sunak’s ‘A’ level reforms for English schools, his ideas did not emerge from regular discussion with and among teachers in England; and, while academic research may be cited to support some of the ideas, they are probably not the result of open ended academic inquiry.

There is, of course, every chance that Mr Sunak’s reforms are never implemented.  A new government may come along and decide to do something different.  That is another difference with the IB which is mission driven, meaning that the purpose and value of its educational programmes remain consistent over decades. Ideas can evolve and improve, they don’t lurch between the current fashions of different parties.

The best missions are simple but meaningful - they give a sense of direction that allow for changes over time or according to place.  The IB wants to educate young people who will “help create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”  These young people will “become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”

How that could be achieved in Geneva 1968, where the IB was first created by a group of visionaries looking to avoid the horrors of world war, is very different to what is needed in a far more multicultural 2023 facing very different challenges - but remaining with the hope of a better and more peaceful world.  

ISA offers the IB for Grades 11 and 12 only.  But it is the common destination for all our students, so the IB philosophy informs our decisions throughout the school.  It means we are part of a network of tens of thousands of educators across the globe with a clear purpose to make the world a better place.  

In next week’s Thistle Talk, Jenny Grogan, our IB coordinator, will write about the issues discussed at the conference.