Saint-Charles is a Candidate School for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. This is a prestigious process that we are undergoing to support our international students in achieving their academic goals. The process is long and involved, requiring teachers to be trained, new departments to be added, and more. Please find here the thoughts from one of our teachers going through the process.
Yeshua, future IB coordinator:
Our school is taking the necessary steps to become an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School in 2020. We will welcome students from other continents and from other backgrounds to our school in Switzerland. These young people will study with us, leading to a degree recognized worldwide, ensuring their mobility and versatility to achieve their future goals!
The IB label cannot be obtained overnight- it’s a long process that involves new courses for teachers, documentation, quality checks, and so on. In this context, each teacher must be trained to teach according to the philosophy and standards of the IB. That’s why two colleagues and I attended one of many workshops in Barcelona.
It was a great opportunity to meet IB teachers from all over, including Spain, Poland, England, Germany, Scandinavian countries and even Morocco). This allowed us to develop an international network to collaborate in the future. The discussions were enriching, especially for me as a teacher who is new to the IB. Some participants had already taught at the IB level for seven or eight years and shared their know-how with us.
Becoming an IB World School is in in line with the values of our region of Switzerland, and our school motto of “openness to the world” further matches with the goals of the IB. The interactions that this will engender with other cultures will be an added value for the young people currently attending school. I am sure that the calm, the location and the simplicity of our region’s environment will benefit the students who will join us from abroad. I think it will be a win-win experience for all!
