11 Plus Exams Forum

What is the difference, IB are now taught in some Grammar schools - will extra tuition in IB education means that the tutors must be trained in IB sytle of education or will any GCSE/A Levels tutor be okay initially if one needs to have extra tuition.
Subjects taught very differently in IB schools in relation to GCSE/A levels - Am I right ?

Pre sixth form teaching will vary enormously from school to school. An English state school taking IB in the sixth, for example, may simply follow national curriculum and sit GCSEs. An international school may follow the 'middle years programe' (look at IB official site) and not offer GCSEs at all - the IB has no exam for this age group. However, I suspect that even an international school with a British contingent of any size would offer at least IGCSEs. My reading of the middle years programme is that its requirements are so vague (other than the requirement for balanced curriculum) that almost any half way sensible national or other curriculum would meet its requirements. However, I am only a parent and claim no expertise in curriculum.

As for the sixth form that's a different matter. I think that some schools that only have a small contingent doing the IB (others doing A levels) have come a cropper by assuming that the exams are very similar. Teaching/tutoring for any exam requires a very thorough knowledge of both the syllabus and how it is tested. I would not engage any tutor that has not done their homework on this - you can do the job better yourself. Generally speaking the IB is not modular and probably requires more independent learning. It also requires success over the whole curriculum i.e. first and second language, maths, science and humanities.