If NC is abolished and we rolled out the IB from primary up

[Cortina]

Don't know lots about it but interested in the IB and the units of inquiry etc. Sounds like a very interesting method of learning where creativity, critical thinking and questioning are encouraged.

Seems to happen Europe so what would be the consequences if we got rid of the NC and changed to IB?

ime IB PYP is not the panacea it is built up to be - it didn't suit ds. From what I have heard the revisions to NC are moving towards a more enquiry based programme anyway, and teachers aren't keen.

From the little I do know it depends on how it operates and I think there are other primary IB 'schemes' rather than just PYP?

If the teachers are skilled in the delivery I've heard it can work very effectively especially if structured well.

PYP I believe starts the 'formal' learning, ie: 3 Rs, much more gradually than NC and children are not expected to know how to write or spell much even at 6.

but ds wanted to learn and wasn't given much opportunity - too much Let's look at Transport and make a town out of cardboard boxes. He needed more structure than it offered, young kids don't make the cross curricular connections that older ones can.

From what others in the system have said if it is being done 'correctly' then pre-schoolers should be learning through play and be sufficiently stimulated.

So if one of the pre-school age wants to discover more say about the body they will all measure each other and talk about bigger than/smaller than, then they might move on to Xrays and bones and songs about bones and so on.

Not putting it well but I have heard friends in Europe enthuse. We seem to be hard wired in UK to want to see progress, tangible results and early 3 Rs success even in the under 6s.

ime it played to the lowest common denominator int he group , so well ebhaved , brighter kids didn't get as much stimulation . You may be right in that if implemented well it works at all levels but just, as in UK and most educational systems, you will have huge variations and, as it is less prescriptive in attainment targets, so harder to benchmark and mainatin consistency.

If you have a child planning to do IB all the way through it will probably resolve itself over time but switching systems (as is often the case for those attending International schools who relocate) becomes problematic. Indeed the IS that ds attended actually introduced more formal learning for 3 rs just as he left to address the shortcomings of PYP.

I can see what you mean.

It seems to give a higher priority to languages, or that may just be what I know via friends. I think this is a great idea.

In Asia you'll get Mandarin, a Chinese native speaker there every day speaking only in Mandarin. Have heard of similar done with French and German in Europe. I like this far sighted approach with language. Believe that children are supposedly 'more' (?) receptive at a young age to second language acquisition?

Where were you based?

I have just been looking into secondary schools and I am shocked by how prescriptive the NC seems? It appears to have noble aims but I find it scary. I fear that a bright, creative child who doesn't have the presentation skills or age appropriate grammar and fine motor skills could be punished? Or worse demoralised and any gifts or talents remaining undiscovered until it is too late.

Am sure it can't be like this but it's changed so much since my day!

ds got German from 5 but it was still quite limited exposure by age of 7. Songs and odd bits of vocab plus cultural topics. It wasn't bilingual teaching. There were native German(and other language) speakers but the flip side of that was some of their English skills were more limited, so that affected the level of teaching and in young children meant some were frustrated and became disruptive.

Once they get to year 10/11 in UK the teaching is more about GCSE's etc than the NC surely, and independent schools don't have to follow NC anyway, whetehr they do traditional A level or IB syllabus.

My sister's children have all done PYP from the outset - her eldest is now in the first year of MYP.

It's very different to the British NC and one of the reasons that children are so slow off the mark with reading and writing with the PYP is that most schools using it are teaching through English medium to a group of children of which the majority do not have English as their home or community language. These children cannot be expected to learn to read and write in English as early as monolingual English children.

Personally I find my sister's children engaged and engaging - rather a lot more so than Parisian children of the same age. Is that down to their schooling? In part. If you want to do well in the IB, IMO you need a rich life outside school, with plenty of international travel and exposure to other cultures. This is only ever going to apply to a tiny minority of children - introducing the IB successfully into national schools is not at all easy.

I am new to it but have been reading about this 'levelling' on another thread and the various key stages and what is deemed to be an A etc. It all seems very rigid. Key Stage 3 leads up to GCSE I think?

In my day the brilliance of your work on Hamlet or otherwise would determine your grade, not whether or not you were using full stops in an appropriate way.

I imagine some sort of rigid tick box system where you have an examiner looking at an essay on Hamlet. He then has to look at it scientifically rather than seeing it's overall creative and artistic merit.

I'm exaggerating but this seems like a scary way to look at things. Almost like a computer marking your work and missing the genius, if it contains genius?

Interesting Bonsoir, thanks. It would be good if some of its interesting ideas filtered into the NC I think.

Some secondary schools are bringing it in for A level I think? Some do it now I think. The perception is, again I think, that at the moment it is harder to do well in than traditional A'levels. It sounds very interesting to me though. I imagine things will change in time.

Yes, the IB is widely recognised by schools and universities to be a more demanding curriculum and examination than A-levels. There would be no market for it if it weren't more demanding than national examinations.

If you have a bright child who has plenty of international exposure and a rich life outside school, then the IB may well be a good way of developing and demonstrating his/her skills.

I don't agree with PYP because of the lack of structure and content. I can see why you can't prescribe content throughout the world, and it may just have been the schools I've worked with and the way they delivered it, but the children didn't really seem to learn anything concrete. There was a lot of play and not much learning and I was looking after 2 children learning the same topic at the same time, with scant differentiation between them. They come out with interesting facts but not sufficient to build a foundation for future learning and the 9 year old who had been at the school from the very beginning struggled with basic maths concepts because they'd just missed out teaching them and the next year's teacher assumed they'd covered it. The whole class spend the second part of the first term learning stuff they should have covered lower down the school and that's a major flaw IMO. The teachers seemed to have too much control over what they wanted to teach and for it to work successfully you need a very international mix, not only of children as Bonsoir says, but of staff as well. The idea that the children lead isn't quite correct - the teacher still has control of the curriculum - but a good teacher has the freedom, under the PYP programme, to do what you said. Most don't.

Native language teachers isn't a fixture of the PYP, in fact plenty of schools do it, including one independent primary and the independent secondary I went to. It's more a benefit of being in an international environment and having access to them.

The primary NC is about to see major changes as a result of the Rose report and a move away from the overly strucutred and levelled system we have to something where teachers have more control over what is taught and how which is, I think, working towards the ideal. I do recommend you read the Rose report if you're interested in primary education because it's very accessible and recommends that we encourage more of the qualities you mentioned in your OP in the classroom. Cross-disciplinary learning is also a key feature of that and there is already a shift, in certain primaries, away from a subject centred approach (now we will do maths, now we will do history, now we will do science) to a topic centred approach and picking a topic such as the Egyptians and incorporating maths, science, history, art, language, geography etc which is one of the good things about a corrently implemented PYP.

MYP is good (but it doesn't give sufficient preparation for formal assessment IMO) and the IB diploma programme is excellent, although the levelling you refer to does still exist in that system (diploma). You have to tick all the boxes to move from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on up to 7.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the philosophy behind PYP is good, the intentions are there, the multi-disciplinary learning approach is beneficial but what it actually lacks is.....a curriculum. You can lay the principles onto a curriuclum and it will be fantastic but you couldn't abolish the NC and say 'this is how we will now learn' because the PYP is a 'how' and not a 'what' and when it falls down it really falls down on the 'what'.

Will look at the Rose report, thanks for such an interesting and detailed answer. So if the NC incorporates the best of the PYP we've got a much more interesting curriculum/system on our hands?

Cortina - KS3 is up to the end of Year 9 & used to lead up to the KS3 SATS until they were abolished - the two years to GCSE are KS4.

I work at a junior school where we are in the first full year of the 'Creative curriculum', based on themes (though Maths is still done separately and to some extent Literacy, though the current theme tends to be reflected in the choice of texts)

It seems to be working very well so far, though as I'm not actually a teacher, this opinion is mostly based on hearsay, but the children love it, they are involved to a much greater extent in their learning.

The curriculum co-ordiator starts by deciding the subject drivers for each half term, to make sure the whole curriculum is covered, then the theme is chosen (this half term the drivers are Music, Art, Drama & Dance and RE & the theme is Celebrations)
We then consult the children by holding an ?Inspiration morning? where we fill the hall with resources which are related with the upcoming theme. The children then get the opportunity to feedback what they have seen that has interested them, questions they would like answered and activities they would like to participate in. These ideas are then incorporated into the staff?s planning with the final product being schemes of work which are exciting, relevant and engaging to the children. (That bit comes from the leaflet we sent out to parents explaining how the new system works)

RustyBear sounds like you are building learning power, great. Glad it's working well and well received.

IMO yes. I think a curriculum of some sort is necessary and the 'creative curriculum' rusty refers to is moving towards this ideal.

The NC needs some changes as it tries to pack to much into the primary years in a prescriptive way but that's a matter of phrasing rather than content IYSWM? But overall PYP principles applied to a curriculum is the way to go.

I really wish the IB school I worked with had followed the process rusty's school does and involved the staff and children to that extent!

My sister's opinion (she is on her second IB school, which is a very good one, and soon to be on her third, if all things go to plan) is that the international mix of teachers is major problem for IB schools. In her experience, Spanish and French teachers (for example) almost universally find it impossible to get their heads around the concept of the IB, so different is it from their training and the national systems they grew up in and worked in. And all the training in the world (which is unaffordable) doesn't undo the person and reprogramme them into the IB thinking.

She also thinks that IB schools are a very eclectic bunch. She is much happier with her children's current school than with the previous one - she is really quite happy with it, in fact - and she is an exceptionally demanding parent!

"I have just been looking into secondary schools and I am shocked by how prescriptive the NC seems? It appears to have noble aims but I find it scary. I fear that a bright, creative child who doesn't have the presentation skills or age appropriate grammar and fine motor skills could be punished? Or worse demoralised and any gifts or talents remaining undiscovered until it is too late."

Cortina yoiu were told on the secondary thread this wasn't the case

We were interested in becoming an IB school, until we found that training courses were in Switzerland and Turkey - a wee bit beyond our budget! We very much liked the way the IB embraced global and social issues within all units of inquiry.

We have taken up the inquiry based idea, and also use the Rose Report for objectives. We have found the NI curriculum docs very useful, as this is inquiry based, and then molded by teachers. Last half term our topic was 'Building our World', and the children built a model of a Polar and a desert region (their choice). This starting point evolved into a project about camels and Ancient Egypt.

I don't know how many friends you have in continental schools where they do the IB at the primary stage. At the Brussels European Schools they have their own 'European' bac at secondary level but I can assure you that the primary level, although starting at 6, involves a lot of formal learning. I have English and French friends with children in both 'normal' French schools (complaints of rote learning which hardly sounds 'creative') and bi-lingual schools (also fairly formal and with a great deal of work). Still if you do know of interesting schools which teach the IB at primary level can you arrange a secondment or something to give your children the experience?

Bruffin certainly at Primary level I worry about NC being too rigid and not seeing the child as an individual. Tinuviel on the Comprehensive thread and others articulate my fears re: secondary school.

I can see that the structure of the NC is a good think and if you have really great teachers then that would counteract a lot of what I worry about I think.

Sorry, that should read good thing

Whilst this is quite a new subject for me because I know very little about current education in the UK I can absolutely promise you that there is nothing creative about teaching in France. Teaching here is mainly rote for younger children and very strict but unimaginitive for older children. Homework is almost always - learn you lesson rather than something constructive that would re-enforce what had been taught in the classroom. To do a proper job of this requires the child to almost be able to recite it!!!

I am under the impression that the IB is a totally different beast to the Bac that is taken here and from my point of view it sounds marvellous. Everything here is very academic, there are no grey areas,it's all very cut and dried quite simply pass or fail. There is certainly no discussion in the classroom and the opinion of a child of any age would never be asked for.

Whilst school life here in France is quite Victorian the level of education taught is very high. It's a tough system and compared with the NC the Bac proves that there is no hiding place because you must pass in every subject. From the first year in primary school everything is based on your 'average' and if you're brilliant at maths but rubbish at French it will hold you back big time.

I am currently considering a move back to the UK but with my eldest at 15 it's not going to be the easiest of transitions for him. At first I though oh brilliant, he can do the IB but I now think that this will be a mistake because he will certainly have some issues with his English. It would be so much easier for him to take A level maths, physics, and French where he could do very well but really this is just hiding his shortfalls in other areas.

Surely the IB is about a more thorough education, or more rounded education. Let's imagine that my son got top grades in his three A levels but still has appaling English, surely it's wrong that he could then go onto Uni?

Another point, the subjects available for 'O' and 'A' levels are now are so diverse, is it possible to opt out of the basic subjects totally?

My son will be taking his mock 'brevet' exams next week which are the Bac system equivalent to 'O' levels. He is only just 15 but that is the system here. The only option offered to him in school has been the choice between Spanish or German as his third language. The only subjects to be tested in the mocks will be History, geography, a subject similar to civilisation, French (4 hrs) and maths. For the proper exams in June he will also do physics and English. it's a jolly tough system and you have to pass in every subject.

TThe other subjects like technology, art, mmusic, and third language will not count!

Sorry to rant on but from where I'm sitting the IB sounds like a walk in the park by comparison but it also sounds like a much better system than the NC!