Young, ambitious parents increasingly face the challenges of embracing a globally mobile lifestyle. While their children long to stay with their friends and attend a school they know and trust, these parents’ employers expect the young families to relocate to far away countries at regular intervals. The burden this puts on the children and parents is often recognised by the employers who frequently provide a substantial education allowance for the children’s schooling. Internationally minded parents with financial resources, too, have realised the advantages of sending their children to international IB boarding schools. Such children have the opportunity to attend an international boarding school in which high school age children attain their diploma without being obliged to change schools or repeatedly build up new groups of friends.

What is the IB?
An IB Boarding School offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) as the final diploma. The IB Diploma has gained great respect over the years in the admissions offices of the best universities worldwide. The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) stems from a 1968 initiative of teachers at the International School of Geneva in Switzerland. These educators envisioned schools that provide a high quality education for internationally minded families. Today the IBO supervises the implementation of the IB curriculum in K-12, the final exam process for all IB students and the certification of IB schools.

Currently 945,000 students in over 140 countries study at over 3,200 IB schools. The IB Diploma Programme covers the final, academically intense phase of an IB education and takes place in the 11th and 12th school years. Recently, the IB was compared to the US high school diploma coupled with a number of advanced placement exams (AP’s) and found to be even more academically demanding. The IB clearly outpaces the United Kingdom’s A-levels and in Germany, for example, the IB has been recognised as equivalent to the prestigious German “Abitur.” Thus the IB Diploma has become a ticket of entry into all the top colleges and universities around the world. A case in point, the Berlin Brandenburg International IB World School in Germany has recently sent students to, among other well respected colleges and universities, the Sorbonne, London School of Economics, London Institute of Art, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, the Free University of Berlin, the Berlin University of Arts and Stanford University.

The IB offers a well rounded, academically rigorous education. The world’s top universities look for strong IB students because of the academic rigor in the IB and because of the IB’s well rounded approach to education.

Compared to the three subjects required for the British A-levels, the IB requires six two-year courses in the following subject areas: Group 1: Language A1, Group 2: Second language, Group 3: Individuals and Societies, Group 4: Experimental Sciences, Group 5: Mathematics and Computer Science, Group 6: The Arts and other subjects.

In the two-year IB programme which constitutes the final phase of high school, students study six subjects chosen from the six subject groups, complete an extended essay, follow a theory of knowledge course (TOK), and participate in creativity, action, service (CAS). Generally, three of the six subjects are studied at higher level (courses representing 240 teaching hours), and the remaining three subjects are studied at standard level (courses representing 150 teaching hours).

The IB marking system
45 points is the maximum final result in the IB Diploma Programme. The six subject areas can be completed with a top mark of seven points which adds up to 42 points. Three extra points can be granted for the Extended Essay and the Theory of Knowledge course (TOK). The top final score of 45 in the IB is a very rare occurrence. Depending on a student’s background, any final result above 38 or 39 is recognised as excellent work and will raise the attention in the admissions offices of the world’s elite universities. These universities understand the independence, creativity and passion developed by the students attending an IB school. Students who complete the 150 CAS (creativity, action service) hours while keeping up with the academic demands of the IB Diploma programme clearly have proven their ability to work creatively and independently, shown academic competence, and exhibited their readiness to address social issues. The IB graduate has a truly well rounded and high powered personality.

Cultural integration
IB Boarding Schools are few and far between because most IB schools serve day students. Out of over 3200 IB schools worldwide only about 200 have boarding facilities. Of the 51 German IB schools, for example, only four offer boarding. A number of boarding schools in Switzerland and some in other countries have added the IB Diploma Programme to their curriculum and a worldwide network of 12 United World Colleges offers boarding and the IB Diploma for students in the 11th and 12th grade. Most of the IB Boarding Schools also offer programmes that lead to the diplomas of their host countries. Only a few of the IB Boarding Schools concentrate solely on the IB and include, for example, the full MYP IB Programme as a preparatory track for the IB in the 11th and 12th grades. All IB Boarding Schools have extensive extracurricular programmes which actively integrate students from so many different countries and cultures.

Well established IB schools tend to boast extensive experience in properly supporting students to manage the successful completion of the course. After all, the IB Diploma has gained its well-deserved reputation as recently as late 1990s. Berlin Brandenburg International School (BBIS) in Germany serves as an example for such an established IB school and has already amassed a 20-year tradition of preparing students for the IB exams. At BBIS about 675 day students currently study in all four of the IB Programmes: Primary Years Programme (PYP) in grades kindergarten through five, Middle Years Programme (MYP) in grades six through 10, the International Baccalaureate Career Certificates Programme (IBCC) and the final IB Diploma Programme (IB) both in grades 11 and 12. Approximately 25 boarding students are enrolled in the MYP and the IB Diploma Programmes at BBIS.

If your children are old enough and you know that you will have to relocate soon, enrol them in an IB boarding school. Your children will be challenged, learn even more languages and benefit from the continuity of the culturally rich and diverse international boarding school environment. Perhaps first and foremost, they will obtain the highly respected IB Diploma which will certainly open many doors for them in the future.

Berlin Brandenburg International School; Tel.: 49 (0) 33203 8036 0; Email: whitney.sterling@bbis.de; Web: www.bbis.de