Diocesan to offer choice of NCEA or Baccalaureate

Monday July 23, 2007

Diocesan to offer students the choice of NCEA or International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

Diocesan School for Girls announced today that it has been authorised to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to students from 2008.

Diocesan will be the only all-girls school in Auckland to offer senior students the choice of studying for the two-year International Baccalaureate Diploma or for National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) qualification at Years 12 and 13.

“We’re delighted to have achieved this highly sought-after authorisation from the International Baccalaureate Organisation,” said principal Ann Mildenhall.

“Offering both the IB Diploma and the NCEA qualification means our students and their parents can choose the pathway that suits them best,” said Mrs Mildenhall.

Mrs Mildenhall said the school had been looking at introducing the IB Diploma since 2004 and decided to apply to the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) for authorisation in October 2006.

“It has been a rigorous process that we undertook only after consulting thoroughly with our board, our teachers, our students and our parents and weighing up other options,” she said.

“When we had all of the facts in front of us, the overwhelming feeling was that the IB Diploma was the best choice. As well as being academically challenging and rigorous, the curriculum is an excellent philosophical fit with Diocesan’s ethos of educating the hearts and minds of our students.”

“The IB Diploma programme is an internationally recognised qualification that is an excellent preparation for university studies. It is accepted at leading universities in New Zealand and abroad, as a university entrance qualification,” said Mrs Mildenhall.

Students studying for the IB Diploma choose six subjects from six areas: languages, arts, social studies, maths, science and technology and personal social and physical education. Three or four subjects are studied at a higher level and the others at a standard level.

Unique features of the IB Diploma include a supervised, 4,000-word extended academic essay that helps students prepare for university, a Theory of Knowledge course that emphasises critical thinking and a Creativity, Action and Service component that gives students real-life experience to encourage risk-taking and personal development.

“The IB Diploma curriculum insists that students fully explore their home culture and language, as well as focussing on international perspectives of teaching and learning,” said Mrs Mildenhall.

From next year the school will also begin teaching the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) in its Junior School, integrating the IB curriculum with the present NZ curriculum.

The IBO is a non-profit educational foundation focussed on the student. Founded in 1968, it currently works with 2,075 schools in 25 countries to develop and offer its programmes to more than 540,000 students aged between three and 19 years.

ENDS

© Scoop Media