"The British School of ..." OR Any Other International (IB) School

[SootieandSweep]

Hoping this is a good place to get some traffic on this question. We are living in Europe with young children (under 5, so education isn't too serious yet).

As per the title, we have the choice to go to the British School of... or any number of other bilingual/International schools, most of which do the IB precursor system (PYP).

As a Brit, the British school appeals, and I think it is technically 'the best' school, by which I guess I mean the most academic at the end of the day (18), but I doubt we will be here when ours finish school. However, I think the IB system seems really lovely and such a nice/refreshing way to look at education.

My concerns with going IB are these:

• British school follows British age cut offs, our kids are all on the younger side in the UK school year, but the older side in the local school year, which follows the calendar. Would we end up behind a year if we moved home? Has anyone navigated this transition?
• One of the teachers described the IB system as the 'cross country route' to get to the same/a better place in the end. But what if we want to switch systems.
• Level of English language learning, I'm assuming they'll learn to read and write regardless of our choice, but will they get that depth of English study?
• UK history etc, that forms part of the UK national curriculum and is taught at the British School. Does this even matter? Is it only because I learnt it growing up that I feel an attachment to it?

The British school happens also to be more expensive and further away, so it's a mad choice in lots of ways. Someone sell me on IB!

Really interested to hear from anyone who's had to think this through before and how you made a choice.

[Not considering local schools, the feedback is that they learn to read/write very late, the alphabet is different, the language is of minor importance globally, apparently for higher earners it's still quite expensive as there is a means tested contribution]

Any reason you wouldn't consider local schools? Edited to say I've seen why now!

The IB programme is great. But if you are planning a short stint or being back in the UK for GCSEs or Alevel, maybe consider the British Schools.

Personally I don’t rate the IB MYP, but the diploma is excellent and have heard that pypmis good too.
my ds had all of his schooling overseas - local school in Austria, then British school in China for GCSEs then the IB diploma at a different international school in China. He was better prepared for the IB diploma than students who had completed the MYP.
my dd attended a British school until she was 12 and then 2 years of the MYP. She needed to catch up in a lot of areas when we moved back to the UK when she was 14, especially as some schools start gcse work in year nine.

I did IB at school and find the idea of studying only 3 subjects after 16 massively restrictive. Because I did such a range of subjects when I decided to retrain I didn't need to do a foundation year or do another A level in my 30's like other mature students. But IB is hard, the diploma is not for every student - some of my classmates took the certificate route instead.

And on the learning British history thing....take it from an 'international kid' - learning history is good, but it won't help them 'feel' British if they move back to the UK. They will feel like they are from where you are raising them.

Any decent IB school will offer first language classes, English for native English, Spanish for Spanish etc etc, and a second language (usually the local one) plus thr usual MFLs.
There are plenty of dodgy newer IB schools round through, so judge them carefully.

Like Shanghai I rate the IB diploma for kids who don't want (or need) to specialize.
I'm less keen on PYP and MYP. However, it is generally more transferable if you are going to consider regular international moves.
If you are looking at coming back to England, I'd go British - you will still find gaps in their knowledge purely from not being in the uk - so my kids can name loads of capitals, but couldn't tell you Brimingham is in the middle, Newcastle is up north sort of stuff.

When we lived abroad ‘The British of’ weirdly offered the IB so it was that or the local system. We discounted it as the early years seemed to spend a lot of time watching stuff on a smart board, the outside play space was rubbish and their ‘enrichment’ was apparently crossing a busy road to go round the local equivalent of Pets at Home. That’s the kind of stuff I would focus on when choosing school, not the 6th form provision when you have under 5s don’t even think you’ll still be living there then. But FWIW I have nieces/nephews who are going through or have recently left a British school in an IB country, mostly because they struggled in the local system and GCSEs/A-Levels were perceived as the softer option. IDK if that’s true but they’re thriving, eldest at uni in London which was always the goal so I think it was a good choice for them to swerve the IB. However, the downside has been a very transient student body and they’ve all had their best friends leave, some of them several times over.

I worked at a state school in the UK that offers the IB myp and then GCSEs and then the Ib diploma.

The pimary years programme is not massively different from the English national curriculum it is just structured differently. There is fairly free choice of topics so your children will probably learn local or international history rather than U.K. history for example. However there is a focus on language of instruction (so either French Spanish or English depending on which the school has picked) and maths with other stuff largely being topic based.

MYP now comes in either five year or three year formats, and the three year format is explicitly for schools that can then offer myp in y 7,8,9 and then GCSEs in year 10 and 11.

MYP does end in an assessment but it is not an assessment that British state or private schools are likely to have heard of and most sixth forms that run on the British system (so a levels) require GCSEs or equivalent to enter. Myp assessment at the end of the five year course is unlikely to be known or accepted by places offering a levels.

If the school is either IB all the way through or offers myp then GCSEs you will be ok but you will be locked into that school.

IB diploma (so the a level equivalent) is a lot broader and much much harder work. Home language and maths are compulsory. So students who are for example good at maths but really struggle with English will do better doing a levels.

It's also complicated in terms of uni entry. U.K. unis are not very familiar with the IB and a lot of offers are easier to get than a level offers. However there are some courses (maths being the classic example) where UK unis are reluctant to take IB students over an a level applicant who has done maths, physics and further maths just because the standard of maths in the IB even at the higher level is so much lower.

So in summary - fine for primary, be very careful for secondary

I think maths can be an issue. When my ds took the diploma in 2018 HL maths was quite rigorous. He took gcse maths early and then AS maths with the remainder of his GCSEs and then moved school for the IB diploma. He found IB HL maths a big jump from AS level and has to work very hard to get a 6. However since then maths has been reformed and there are two different courses and only one of them is accepted for uni maths courses. My local uk college offers the IB diploma and a leveld recommends taking A levels if you want to study maths at uni.

It really depends on whether you have a view on if your kids are more generalist or specialist. IB is better for all rounders but if for example they are rubbish at maths and have zero interest in it or English or whatever then IB you have to do some of it whereas A levels you can avoid subjects you loathe
There are British school of .. in most countries you end up as an expat in general terms so you can stay British system if you move. If you're thinking you may move back to UK I'd definitely stay British system. That's what I did with my kids despite the fact that I did IB myself

I went to the British School Of. Deliberately didn’t do IB at international school because planned to return to UK age 16.
i was so glad I did A levels as wanted to specialise in a limited number of subjects, not do less breadth on a wider subject set.

My kids secondary school in the UK does IB. Both eldest two leaving for 6th form as want to do A levels instead

I went to the American school of because they offered IB .The British school of didn't, and there were convolutions with having to go to the embassy to actually sit iGcses. Very much depends where you are.

Thank you so much to all for all the helpful advice! School tours coming up, maybe I'll feel a bit clearer after that. It feels that maybe British system is better for us as we do intend to go back to UK (rather than a further international move, but who knows), probably when kids around 9-11.

@ShanghaiDiva this is very interesting. Actually the British School here gives the option of IB or A levels, so perhaps they've cottoned on to the fact that iGCSEs are a better prep than the MYP. At this stage we are mostly interested in how PYP compares to Key Stages English system. In the event that we stay here, I'd be happy to move them once, e.g. PYP into iGCSE, but I don't want to move them multiple times. In the event we move home, we would obviously have to move them, so again it's essentially does the move from PYP to UK system, just before or a few years before GCSE work? It sounds as though from your experience the key thing is not to count on the MYP being good prep for a UK move.

IB, Pearson, Oxford AQA and Cambridge are all exam boards, and schools can buy in their services (curriculum, assessments and study materials, from Early Years through to A Levels/IB Diploma). They do not own or run the schools though, so schools can and do offer qualifications from more than one board, and the standard of teaching/ethos of the school is very much on that school. There is no blanket answer as to which would be better, or how well your child will be prepared under any given curriculum. Also, some schools in the UK do offer the IB diploma, and again may off traditional A Levels alongside.

This article from WhichSchoolAdvisor.com might be useful, it's focussed on UAE schools but the curriculum comparisons are good: IB Vs English National Curriculum for Primary (whichschooladvisor.com)

My daughter found the IB suited her better than A levels. She studied 6 subjects at different levels including a language and geography. It seemed very well rounded with some emphasis on community work. She also was one of the youngest in her year in the country where we lived - whereas would have been in the year below in uk. So she went to university at 17. Apart from having a few months where she couldn’t legally go into bars it didn’t seem to affect her.

We are in a similar position, but we had already started primary in the UK and have recently moved to an all through IB international school abroad, fully funded by the employer so we had no choice on school in our host city. Our child is now doing the PYP IB programme and we've found that it's a lot of learning through play (similar to reception) until they're around 7. This is great if you are in the IB system all of the way through (as a former teacher who then worked in HE admissions, I think the IB is a much more rigorous qualification for an "all rounder" whereas the British system allows for more specialism earlier on and we push kids too early in the UK) but we are concerned that when we move back to the UK our child will be "behind" his peers in aspects such as reading, writing, maths because there is less focus on honing a specific narrow skillset in the early years whereas my child has already been in 2 years of daily phonics classes in the UK, writing and reading full sentences, to now be sat in a class with peers learning how to write the letter "L"... But then he's also learning so much more "stuff" than he would be in his (Outstanding) state school in London such as weekly cooking, drama, dance and multiple PE lessons a week not to mention the added benefits that come with being in a global community.

In our situation we've spoken to other British parents (as everyone has similar issues) and the teacher to explain our concerns and the level he was working at in the UK (and the school knows that families in our position haven't actually picked the school) and they've said they will give him access to more challenging material from now on, but if you started in the first year you're saying "this is the education that I want for my child" - if you're unsure whether you do want that then I'd pick a school where you are happy with the curriculum in the first couple of years and take it from there. You can always switch school/curriculum later on down the line.

That said, I'd also be wary of picking a school because it has British in the name. In our host city, the British School isn't (locally) rated as "good" at teaching a UK style of curriculum and most ex pats who can choose their child's education send them to another school if they want this style of education.

I'd also echo what someone else said about the MYP not being as "rigorous" if the child is moving between curriculums. I think it all balances out in the end, but the main reason we don't want to stay in the ex pat world on a long term basis is because we are concerned about the move back, and we've had a number of conversations with both local and ex pat families who are sending their kids elsewhere for secondary level if they don't want to complete their education in this school.

Moving between school systems during the course of childhood always throws up issues that are mostly resolved through parental gap-plugging (which can be help with homework, private tutoring, summer schools, holiday camps, extra curriculars etc). The IB diploma is an excellent standard and absolutely fine for HE admissions to the top UK universities providing, of course, that (as with A-levels) subjects are chosen wisely. Some IB diploma schools are more restrictive on subject combinations/choices than others and it is wise for parents to research the admissions conditions for university courses early on and not rely on international schools' university guidance counsellors who are mostly unable to keep abreast of the breadth of international universities which their students apply to.

I teach internationally and have experience of British including A-levels, British that switches to IB for diploma, and full IB. I teach Secondary but have kids at Primary. There are definitely pros and cons to all systems and each suits some children more than others, but you can't generally predict what will suit them when they're little!

There's lots of good advice on here but to be honest, unless you have a very clear idea of future moves (UK or elsewhere?) or a very fixed focus on a particular curriculum, the school itself is more important than the curriculum/programme. Go with your gut when you visit the schools, and think about all the other aspects besides the curriculum, e.g. pastoral care, ethos, amd whatever is important to you in terms of arts/sports provision, STEM focus, student demographics, languages offered, wider community and, above all, the 'feel' of the school. You might just instinctively know when you walk around around a school that it is (or isn't!) for right for your family. I really think that the overall school experience is more important than the curriculum at Primary level, and whatever you choose there may be gaps to fill if/when you move on, even if you stay within the same system. I would simply pick the school that works best for you right now, and reevaluate when you move or as you hit key ages if you stay put.