It may surprise you to know that the largest group of schools to collectively use the International Baccalaureate (IB) in Europe is a mainstream multi-academy trust spread across Kent and south-east London.
But here at Leigh Academies Trust (LAT), 25 out of 31 of our academies are now IB World Schools, with three more mainstream academies in the candidacy phase, too.
In addition, LAT’s two special schools are on track to become IB this year. If they do, they will be the first special educational needs IB World Schools on the planet - a major development for both LAT and for the IB itself.
This is why we can call ourselves the single largest IB community anywhere in Europe.
This shift was not quick. The journey started in 2016 and there have been numerous challenges along the way. Yet we believe the move to the IB in various forms across our schools is a decision that is having huge benefits for our pupils and positions us perfectly for a long-term educational future.
So why did we do it? And how?
Our International Baccalaureate journey
The genesis of this approach came in 2016 when Wilmington Academy introduced the IB Career-Related Programme as part of a Kent-based project to raise standards at post-16. This programme was started in a small number of selective sixth forms in the county to raise standards and increase student recruitment.
As the IB was already offered in some of the region’s most successful schools, like Dartford and Bexley grammar schools, and much favoured in the prestigious, fee-paying sector, too, the adoption of the IB programmes aligned LAT with some of the best academic institutions in the UK and abroad.
We also chose the IB as we wanted a curriculum of international repute that would not be swayed by the pendulum of politicisation impacting on how teachers do their jobs.
More on the International Baccalaureate:
Indeed, moving to the IB was, in part, also influenced by a desire to maintain high levels of freedom and professional trust among teachers and school leaders.
This was one of the clear impacts of the switch at Wilmington Academy. Teachers immediately relished the extra freedoms offered by the IB to go beyond the national curriculum and work from a curriculum that allowed them to focus more deeply on planning and delivering high-quality teaching and learning.
Buoyed by this success, we then looked at how we could further embed the IB in our other schools.
Going trust-wide
We did this by rolling out its key stage 3 Middle Years Programme to all schools in 2018 and then its Primary Years Programme to all primaries in 2019. All students focus on GCSEs for KS4 as standard.
However, we are now offering the IB Diploma Programme, instead of A levels, to 16- to 18-year-olds at Leigh Academy Blackheath’s new sixth from September, as well as the Career-related Programme.
Depending on the success of this, we will evaluate whether we should expand this further to other post-16 provisions in our MAT.
Of course, making these changes required clear communication with staff and parents.
In the case of staff, multiple training opportunities were offered initially, and these have been sustained to maintain the momentum of the programme. Showcase events across our academies have also helped to promote best IB practice and further drive learning among teachers.
For new staff, we don’t make IB experience a requirement. We provide training to those who require it.
However, we have attracted some exceptional teachers from high-performing IB schools in the UK and overseas because of our growing reputation as a centre for IB education in this country.
In relation to parents, open events were hosted to explain the key features of the IB and share information about materials being sent home so that they were aware what was being studied and how.
Regular surveys have helped us to assess how well parents have understood key messages about the IB so that we can properly target future communications.
It is worth acknowledging that participation in IB programmes comes with a cost, which we are fortunate that our trustees continue to meet.
It would be difficult for a small school standing on its own to sustain an ongoing financial investment in curriculum development. The IB can also be a little bureaucratic at times, with policies and processes to follow that help it sustain a high-quality international brand. This is worth bearing in mind.
Flexibility in teaching
Despite the challenges, we believe the IB has been a major success.
Our first genuine IB cohort who have followed the programme all the way through completed KS2 and KS4 in 2023, achieving some of the best Sats and GCSE outcomes on record in the trust.
What’s more, teachers say that “IB students” stand out from the crowd due to their increased levels of confidence, maturity and achievement. Students, meanwhile, say the IB has restored their enjoyment of learning and helped them to appreciate the wider, global implications of what they study in school.
For teachers, the IB offers a far greater degree of flexibility and autonomy.
The IB’s flexible curriculum has no particular pedagogical prejudice; nor does it prescribe the subject content that underpins the curriculum. It is impossible for the IB to specify subject content in any case, as its programmes operate across multiple national frontiers.
On the first point, this means that academies and teachers can continue to deliver the approaches to teaching and learning that they believe are most effective for their pupils, based on the latest evidence-based research.
On the latter point, LAT does prescribe some degree of subject content for its academies to enable common testing. However, beyond this, the IB’s subject content neutrality enables academies to maintain a high degree of freedom regarding the essential knowledge that underpins the curriculum to best meet the needs of their local community.
In all cases our academies offer the full national curriculum but take advantage of the flexibility offered by the IB to go above and beyond.
A bold move
The decision for LAT to partner with the IB was big, bold and brave. It was pioneering because no other schools in the UK had done it quite like this before.
The IB’s approach is one of constant reflection and continuous improvement; the same approach we aspire to for our pupils.
As we have seen the benefits of the IB curriculum over time, we have become more certain than ever that we are on the right path.
Recent government announcements, such as a baccalaureate-style approach to post-16 study for all, further convince us that we are not the only ones thinking this way.
Simon Beamish is the CEO of Leigh Academies Trust
