These days, both A levels and the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) are well-established programmes for Sixth Form study. A levels enable pupils to focus on three or four subjects, with any wider educational content at the discretion of each school. Since the reforms of recent years, A levels are now genuinely rigorous assessments, requiring real depth of knowledge and understanding that is recognised and welcomed. The IBDP places the study of six subjects – including Maths, English and a modern foreign language other than your own – within a range of other compulsory elements: an extended essay, study of the Theory of Knowledge and completion of creative, active and service activities (CAS) over the two years.
I believe fundamentally in the importance of giving children the opportunity to make connections in their studies: this after all is the way that their minds work if allowed to. I believe that education should enable young people to look up and out rather than down and in, and that it should clearly value global citizenship and the development of character. The IBDP values international-mindedness and its approach to Sixth Form studies ensures that the learning of every pupil comprises the curricular and the co-curricular, providing a genuinely rounded education. I believe in its value.
However, in neither of the two schools where I have been Head have I introduced the IBDP. Firstly, not all parents or young people want it. Running both programmes together is expensive and almost invariably leads to compromises and drives cost. It can divide the pupils.
Secondly, it is too rigid. The creative and performing subjects are squeezed, for example, and there is no way of doing three sciences and maths at the equivalent of A Level standard. This is entirely true to the philosophy of the IBDP, but there are plenty of sixteen-year-olds who are better suited to a more specialised Sixth Form diet, where the rich interplay between cognate subjects can better be explored: true scholarship. Thirdly, university offers for IBDP students are made in terms of the total tally. Those for whom Maths, English or a language would never have featured among choices likely to result in the highest grades are forced to take all three and thereby run the risk of compromising their chances. It is also the case that not all admissions tutors understand the IB in the way that they do A levels when making grade offers, and the need to standardise markers across the world introduces further risk.
What A levels give that the IBDP does not is the freedom for pupils and schools to weave genuinely satisfying academic qualifications into a strong, flexible whole, empowering our pupils to adapt to the growing sense of their intellectual self that we see emerging during Year 11, through which they can form their own identity as unique individuals.
Even more powerfully, what A levels give is not just the opportunity to make connections in their studies, but the requirement to do so. The synoptic element of A levels developed over this century is now well-established and greatly celebrated among those who teach and those who learn: they are deeply satisfying both academically and intellectually.
Ultimately, I believe that the best way of putting together a Sixth Form programme is to build it yourself, and to build it around A levels. At Oundle, this begins in Year 7 and Year 8, where pupils spend one morning each week with a timetable that has no subject boundaries: Omnia. In Year 9 they have two lessons each week where they embark on an intellectual and academic expedition of their teacher’s own choosing – Trivium – the only condition being that the journey is interesting, covers ground that really matters to the teacher and is not bounded by subject disciplines. By Sixth Form, pupils can choose the advanced version of this programme – Quadrivium – or the EPQ, both of which require extended writing and scholarship. Some pursue a Music Diploma instead, others learn a language from scratch. These sit alongside a free choice of four A levels, most pupils dropping to three, and a huge range of sporting, cultural and service opportunities that remain compulsory until the pupils leave.
“Global citizenship and the development of character as a person, not just as a learner, is the bread and butter of a good tutorial system.”
The IBDP is based on sound educational principles, but its structure and implementation mean that some of these are lost, not least the concept of the individual learner. The IDBP insists that the profile of a learner is the same for all pupils. We all know that it is not. A programme with a levels at its core gives the very best chance to develop our pupils as unique learners and unique young people, which in the end is the aim of all schools.