International Baccalaureate
What is the IB?
The International Baccalaureate Programme is a comprehensive and rigorous two-year curriculum, leading to examinations for students aged between sixteen and nineteen. Based on the pattern of no single country, it is a deliberate compromise between the specialisation required in some national systems and the breadth preferred in others.
The IB mission statement:
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.
These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
Since its foundation in 1968 the IB Diploma has become a symbol of academic integrity and intellectual rigour. The student who satisfies its demands demonstrates a strong commitment to learning in terms of the mastery of subject content, in the acquisition of the skills and discipline needed for success in a competitive world, and in the development of caring and responsible attitudes to the problems that world faces..
Only schools officially approved by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) are authorised to offer the curriculum and to present candidates for examination. Of over 3,000 current member schools in 140 countries throughout the world, some 540 schools are located in the European Union, 6 of them in Portugal and 220 of them in the UK. About 1,500 are public or private high schools in the United States or Canada.
The International Baccalaureate is based in Geneva, Switzerland, with regional offices or representatives in Bath, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cardiff, Geneva, Mumbai, New York, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver. The Examinations Office, located in Cardiff, Wales, oversees two examination sessions per year. The May session serves the large majority of candidates, including those from St Julian's School. Some 10,500 individual examiners world-wide, among them seceral St Julian's teachers, participate in the assessment of the work of more than 100,000 Diploma candidates every year.