Farewell from Peter Fidczuk

I write this as I retire from the IB as Recognition Manager, UK & Ireland after 30 years involvement with IB programmes. I was originally appointed to an IB-IBSCA co-funded role in 2014 as the IB’s Development and Recognition Manager for the UK with a remit to improve recognition by UK universities, to develop IB programmes in the UK and to support the existing schools through IBSCA.

My time working with IB programmes goes back to 1996 when I was at Dartford Grammar School and was part of the team that introduced the Diploma Programme, becoming authorised as school 0866. Prior to that I had no contact with the IB, or indeed any programmes besides the standard Key Stage 3, GCSEs and A Levels.

Attending my first workshop as a chemistry teacher in Geneva was a revelation, introducing me to the global collaborative educational community with which I have continued to work ever since. For us at DGS, becoming an IB school brought us into a close working relationship with schools that were very different to us,  for example, Sevenoaks School and the Anglo-European School, Ingatestone. And that remains the same today, our IBSCA community brings together schools that are very different but which share the same ideals of getting the best outcomes for our students and making the world a better place. I still believe the old IB slogan ‘Education for a better world’ is as relevant now as it ever has been.

In those far off days the IB Diploma was the principal IB programme in the UK and was, maybe still is, thought of as the ‘IB’. The PYP and MYP existed but were never talked about. I’m pleased that in a small way I was part of the movement that changed this as in 2004 I led on the development of the MYP at Dartford Grammar School, which became the first authorised MYP UK state school in 2007. Our intention at that time was to introduce the key elements of the Diploma that made such a difference to students’ outcomes, but to do so in Year 7 to accelerate the students’ development. However, it was a struggle to implement the MYP as it was still a 5 year programme and running it alongside the National Curriculum and GCSEs led to tensions. These were resolved to a certain extent when IB introduced flexibility in the MYP allowing it to be taught for a minimum of two years and so the school moved to the commonly held 3 years MYP, 2 years GCSE model. As we move forward with the MYP enhancements it will be interesting to see how these impact on the delivery of the MYP in years 10 and 11, especially if the Government makes changes to the GCSEs following the Curriculum and Assessment review which we await the outcome of. At our recent MYP conference it was announced that we now have 46 MYP schools either authorised or in the process of being authorised with the potential to reach 50 next year. This is an enormous change since 2004.

Another significant change since I started teaching IB Diploma Chemistry has been the formalisation of skills development. In 1996 the Diploma was promoted as educating the whole learner through ‘holistic learning’: the incorporation of 6 subjects, TOK, the EE and CAS. However the key attributes of what we now consider an IB education were absent and were introduced incrementally. The ‘Learner Profile’ was shared from PYP practice and given its centrality to IB philosophy it is strange to think that it is a relatively recent development. Also the role of ‘Approaches to Learning’ and ‘Approaches to Teaching’ have become central to IB pedagogy. When we first started teaching the MYP in 2004 ATL existed as an ‘Area of Interaction’ as bolt on to the 8 subjects. The ‘MYP The Next Chapter’ revision of 2014 removed the AOIs and put ATL and ATT at the core of the programme and this approach was subsequently extended to the Diploma and Career Related Programmes. This focus on pedagogy marks a critical difference between IB programmes and the National Curriculum, GCSEs and A Levels and I believe is one of the key reasons our learners succeed. It’s something that I wish the DfE would consider – in all the documentation relating to the various stages of the post 16 qualification review the term ‘pedagogy’ was not used once, the whole process being driven by the ‘value’ of qualifications rather than the learning that takes place.

The Career-related Programme has been a major development during the time that I have been Development and Recognition Manager for the UK and a sizeable amount of my time has been taken up supporting schools through the process of becoming authorised. In 2012 the IB, through its then Regional Director AEM, Adrian Kearney, set up a innovative project in Kent where a number of state high schools and comprehensives developed the CP as a stand alone programme without being authorised. They were supported in this project by an authorised ‘hub’ school, Dane Court Grammar School.  This was contrary to established IB practice in two ways: firstly the CP could only be delivered by authorised Diploma Programme schools, and secondly the IB does not permit pre-authorisation teaching of the DP and CP. However this brave experiment was hugely successful bringing in over 20 CP schools which were in due course authorised and led to the establishment of the CP as a stand alone programme. The critical part of this project was that it brought an IB education to communities that were less privileged, particularly Kent coastal communities. In one of my final tasks for the IB I am carrying out a CP destination survey which will be compiled into a report to be shared with the UK IB community later in the year.

One of the responsibilities that I took on in the role was to engage with UK universities to improve the recognition of the Diploma Programme and to encourage them to improve their entry requirements for our students. One reason we lost some of the  ‘Tony Blair’ DP schools of the late noughties was that they felt that their students were not being treated fairly by universities. The UCAS tariff at the time was not great (nor was the DfE equivalence used for the school accountability measures). However, following investment in an IBDP-A Level equivalence project by IBSCA, conducted by the Fisher Family Trust, both the UCAS tariff and the DfE equivalences changed positively. However, that is not to say that all is fine and further work needs to be done with UCAS particularly to change the unhelpful gap in the tariff between IB grades 5 and 6. I believe that over the last 11 years universities’ understanding of our programmes: the Diploma Programme, Diploma Programme Courses, the Career-related Programme and the Middle Years Programme, has increased substantially, which has resulted in improved entry requirements. Nevertheless, schools, students and parents have persistently complained that universities do not give credit to the wider learning that takes place in the Diploma Programme. In the A level world, some universities have given credit to students also studying the EPQ by making ‘alternative’ offers in which a good outcome in the EPQ has been linked to a reduction in the grades required in the A Levels. We have encouraged universities to take a similar approach to the Diploma but this has for the most part been resisted. However, a number of universities have taken a different approach to alternative offer making for Diploma students by offering applicants the choice of meeting their entry requirements through either reaching a points total OR achievement in their higher level subjects. I’m very pleased to see that the number of these universities is growing, and they have been joined by King’s College London and Nottingham this UCAS cycle.

In my university role, I am succeeded by Beth Shotton: beth.shotton@ibo.org and in my development role by James Heath: james.heath@ibo.org. Please contact them if you have issues about universities or if your school or trust is interested in developing an additional IB programme. I wish them both good luck in their roles.

I first joined the IBSCA steering committee in 2007 as a representative of the MYP schools and as chair of the SE Diploma Coordinators group. I am pleased to see that in the intervening years both concepts have grown. The Diploma coordinators have now established a number of communities covering much of the UK and including Ireland. Although COVID was a national disaster, it did bring some useful developments, amongst the foremost being the introduction of virtual meetings. Prior to COVID, we would only meet face to face, with all the resultant difficulties with cover, travel etc. However, the introduction of virtual meetings through Zoom, Teams, Google Meet has transformed our ability to interact and IBSCA has led the way through the use of virtual platforms to deliver workshops, conferences and community meetings. The virtual environment has enabled IBSCA to develop meaningful online communities for each programme, each led by an IBEN: Maggie Hos-McGrane for the PYP, Dianne Blackburn for the MYP, Simone Lorenz-Weir for the DP and Becky Austin-Pickard for the CP. I would encourage all readers to take part in the appropriate community!

I have enjoyed working in this joint role for the last 11 years, but I could not have done it without your help. Being able to speak with the voice of our schools to universities and to the DfE has been invaluable. I also value the many friendships that I have established and I will miss working with you. Lastly, I would like to thank Richard for his leadership as CEO these last 5 years and to Lara and Bryony from Oxford Course Managers, who have very ably managed all of our activities and have never failed to support us with patience and good humour.