International Baccalaureate Organization

When I listen to what you say, you know, and the other idea that was being kicked around.

And in fact, I sat in on a parent's meeting, gosh, over a year ago on creating a middle school program at Pensacola High, an IB middle school program.

Where does that stand? It's going well.

80, I'm going to say we have around 80 or 82 kids in seventh and eighth grade currently at Pensacola High School.

We have our School Choice Expo tomorrow night.

I'm hopeful that there'll be many, many parents.

More importantly, students that are interested in going into that middle school years academic program in hopes of being in the IB program, because that is one top notch program there.

All right.

And this has to do with the timing, the fact that today's, so many of today's students, especially the ones who are contending for the higher scores, they are engaged in really rigorous studies.

They have many APs or a thick IB schedule.

They're dealing with all different kinds of extracurriculars.

And one of the most important decisions, more important than SAT versus ACT, is when will you take the test? And if you wait until late fall of junior year to start thinking about that, you may have missed your best opportunity to prep over the summer and knock out your SAT or ACT before you even take the PSAT.

Let's look at the rigor.

You know, honors, number of classes, number of AP classes, dual enrollment classes, IB classes, and the final grade that's on the transcript.

You know, even something as simple as that is often overlooked by this beautiful number that sounds amazing, 4.3, 4.4. You know, little things like that even could skew their vision of what's expected.

That's really interesting.

She used to come home and make up her own research projects.

But by the time she got to the IB in high school, she, you know, she was just slogging through the work.

Just get it done so I can get out of here, you know.

And I think that somewhere along the line, you know, when I taught elementary school, that's what I liked about it was kind of this innocence, this, you know, like curiosity about the world.

Now, one of the biggest things that distinguishes BHS from other schools is its curriculum.

BHS is an International Baccalaureate School, or IB.

And if you've listened to my recent episode about the different high school curricula, you'll remember that IB emphasizes critical thinking, inquiry, research, writing, and global perspectives.

It's all about making connections between subjects and understanding not just what you're learning, but why it matters.

And then, uh-

But you like the IB, the International-

They continue-

The International Baccalaureate

the, the English, like all the way up until they're eighteen.

It's just the hours are too long.

There is, there is, uh, I think a growing sense that there's much to be taken from the IB, the International Baccalaureate, and I know from personal experience, schools that do offer it in here in England, I don't know about the rest of the UK, can be very, very popular schools such as Sevenoaks down in Kent.

Leigh, thanks for the background, having children in the French system.