IB school

[2confused]

can anyone help me understand this IB school terminology. I read that some school are candidate school for IB, what does that mean? and what is IB world school? Thanks  

[Dr. Phil]

IB, if you see it, run a mile. Its like GM crops; being pernicious and ultimately destructive.
It is political correctness, in this case interfering with the education of your children.
IB, interfering b@stards.

The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is an international educational foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1968 in Geneva, IB offers three educational programmes for children ages 3–19. The organization's name and logo were changed in 2007 for legal reorganization. Consequently, "IB" can refer to the organization itself, any of the three programmes or the diploma or certificates awarded at the end of the diploma programme.

IB is something UWC would embrace.

There are invariably PC standards imposed on many professions today claiming to unite the world.

IB claims to prepare your children for a multi-cultural world and invariably these are designed to undermine pre-existing standards and techniques for a variety of reasons ultimately associated with labour costs and flexibility.

In other words, your child will be prepared to take his/her place in this multi-cultural world so education must be limited, qualifications increasingly common or meaningless. Your child must be no greater threat or asset than a peasant child in Bangladesh or outer Mongolia; salaries and conditions of service, standards of education and qualifications all must be universally acceptable to employers whatever the real standards actually are. Today many employers are allowed to accept educational and professional qualifications from overseas as equal to their own domestic or national standards.

This is contrary to the mission statements of decent schools who are proud of their standards and encourage competitiveness, individuality, responsibility and personal integrity, not to mention common sense. 
 

[ignore "doctor" phil]

can anyone help me understand this IB school terminology. I read that some school are candidate school for IB, what does that mean? and what is IB world school? Thanks  

He is no such thing and has an axe to grind.  please ignore him and wait for a proper, unbiased answer.

[IBer]

Firstly I second the call to Ignore “Dr. Phil” He is our resident troll and a total pain in the Ar**

A candidate IB school is one that has applied to teach the IB (diploma) and is awaiting accreditation to do so. For more info on the IB Google is your friend.

[Dumb and dumber]

I read Dr Phil posts and my heads spins... he is smart enough to type, but not smart enough to make sense.

Don't bother about arguing with him. As someone once said "Never argue with a fool, they will drag you down and beat you with the benefit of experience."

[Dr. Phil]

The difference between me and the three previous UWC'ers, is that I answered the question, but they did not. 
I gave my opinion on the original question and you criticize my opinion without ever answering the question.

[ignore "doctor" phil]

The difference between me and the three previous UWC'ers, is that I answered the question, but they did not. 
I gave my opinion on the original question and you criticize my opinion without ever answering the question.

I'm not a UWC'er, I have no kids and no opinion on any of the schools here.

However, I do use this messageboard and I have an opinion on the members here.

And it is evident that you're not a doctor, you're a fraud and frequently spout ill-informed and biased rubbish that is no use to a new forum participant looking for genuine advice.

I repeat my comment of advising the OP to wait for someone with an unbiased opinion.

[hp sauce]

Essentially the cornerstone of IB education is the Unit of Inquiry, heavy emphasis on project approach for the children. Current UOI at my school is Families and Relationships, if that sort of topic enrages you, then best not place your children at an IB school. However, in a world of faked qualifications and grade inflation many many universities are looking to the Independently verified IB diploma instead of A levels and SAT scores. Even the French. And they have an excellent school system.

[IB Diploma]

I don't know about the early or middle school IB programme since my child didn't do that. However, the IB diploma ( running at Tanglin, UWCSEA,OFS,CIS, as well as Anglo-Chinese Independent and Anglo-Chinese International plus many other schools in Singapore)is a rigorous system requiring the student to take an exam in 6 subjects; 3 at higher level, 3 at standard level. Subjects have to include Maths, English and a foreign language(or mother tongue if that is not English), a Science, a social Science (History,Geography, Business Studies, Economics etc.)and a subject from the Arts (Music, Art or Drama). On top of that, they have to write an Extended Essay ( 4000 words) in a subject they are studying, take a course in Theory of Knowledge and do 150 hours of Social Service, Creativity and Activity in the two years of the IB programme.
If your child is an all-rounder or highly motivated then the IB is a great programme. Unlike the A-level system , where you can retake AS as well as A level subjects as often as you like,  you have to pass all exams with at least a 4 (1-7 is possible) and get a minimum of 24 points in order to get the Diploma. In theory you can resit an exam but many schools don't support that, so you may have to arrange that yourself with the IB organisation.
When my child went to visit universities in the UK, the response from admissions staff at  Durham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Imperial and York were very positive towards the IB and we had two written offers before the results were out on the strength of the Extended Essay.
 

[Another thing]

With the continuous drop in the standards of British A levels, some other measure is required to distinguish the avergae student from the good and the good from the very good.  As there is grade inflation in the UK system, this is no longer possible.

[2confuse]

Thanks all that have provided constructive feedback on this subject. I have done some searching on the website as well, especially the IB website. Does anyone know if they is a website that shows statistics on each IB school's passing/success rate at the Diploma level. I remember reading somewhere that ACSI has one of the highest success. Thanks 

[IBer]

I don't think there is one consolidated website. I know a lot of schools do publish their scores on their own websites. 

[Second language]

I have a son in a school with an IB program.

The bit I don't understand is whether the system or the admitting universities attempt to scale for the fact that some students will have a natural advantage of a bilingual upbringing or environment. There are kids in my son's class whose parents come from France, Indonesia, Taiwan etc, so for these kids to ace these as their second language will be pretty simple. By the same token a Singapore or Swiss student should generally score higher in second languages due to the bilingual environments they grow up in.

I recall from my Australian school, we had a student from Singapore that was getting 95%+ for every Chinese exam, and the mark counted every bit as much in the leaving exams as physics, chemistry, maths etc.

So my question – would a university attempt to normalise for this?

 

[to PP]

It is a good question about second languages and I don't know the answer bu,t at OFS, my daughter's group (admittedly only at grade 1) were told that they could not select their mother tongue as a second language so, for example, a French kid could not choose French.

[Balancing Act]

There are also very many students who are taking English for whom this is not a first language so whilst they might be at a natural advantage in their choice of 2nd language, they are doing a mother tongue course in a language which is not their own.  This does redress the balance somewhat.