Understanding the Differences between IGCSE and IB Board

Confused about the differences between IGCSE and IB curriculum? You’ve come to the right place! Here at DRS International School, we offer both IGCSE and IB curriculum, and can help you understand what the difference is.

The first thing to understand is that IGCSE is a qualifying examination at the Grade 10 level offered by CAIE (Cambridge Assessment International Education) while IB is an international curriculum that offers a continuum of four educational programmes- IB Primary Years Programme, IB Middle Years Programme, IB Diploma Programme and IB Career-related Programme.

A student who has successfully completed the IGCSE exam is therefore comparable to one who has completed the IB MYP. It is in fact, quite a popular choice among IGCSE students to opt for the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) after completing their IGCSE examination.

Rather than looking at the difference between IGCSE and IB, a better comparison would therefore be drawn between the CAIE (Cambridge Assessment International Education) and the IB, both of which offer different programmes for students of various ages.

• Inquiry Based Learning
  Both CAIE and IB emphasize on inquiry-based learning, although the IB approach to it is more clearly articulated. Students of both IB and CAIE learn through exploration and investigation.
• Assessments
  Cambridge Assessments are more traditional and rigorous and focus on problem-solving skills, while assessments in IB are inclusive of more holistic parameters such as portfolios, field work, CAS and outreach etc.
• Internationalism
  While both CAIE and IB foster a strong culture of internationalism, the IB curriculum, by design, clearly defines ways, practices and experiences through which students can become internationally minded.

As you can see, while both curricula are distinctive, there are not many parameters that set them apart and they are both excellent choices for students who wish to study in international universities.

What we recommend however is - why choose, when you can do both? Pursuing IGCSE at the secondary level, and the IB Diploma Programme after that, is definitely a tried and tested recipe for academic success!

Speaking Up!

Our students of the IB PYP enjoyed the Inter-House Elocution competition which was held on 20th of April. Students of Grades III to V  actively researched, reflected and shared their understanding of the topics at hand that included ‘Special feature of a country’ ,‘A country I would like to visit’, ‘My dream  world’, ’ Healthy mind is a healthy body’, ‘Factors affecting our health’, ‘Health is wealth',‘Why brain is  called the boss of the body’,‘Factors affecting learning’ ‘Learning is a lifelong process’.

All the topics of the elocution competition were linked to the students' current inquiries and provoked them into presenting their understanding of different lines of inquiry in their own ways. The even certainly went a long way in boosting the students' communication skills and presentation skills. 

Benefits & Advantages of IGCSE Curriculum – IGCSE School Benefits

Understand the key benefits of IGCSE curriculum. The main advantage of IGCSE is that they prepare your child to be the international citizen of tomorrow.

Benefits & Advantages of IGCSE Curriculum

The popularity of Cambridge IGCSE curriculum has been steadily increasing among parents and if you are still trying to make up your mind, here we have listed the key benefits and advantages of IGCSE curriculum.

The Cambridge Curriculum (Cambridge Assessment International Education) offers students several advantages over other boards. Here are some of the biggest benefits and advantages IGCSE offers :

A Range of Choices With the Cambridge IGCSE, you can choose from over 70 subject electives in around 20 languages! Each Cambridge affiliated school offers a distinct combination, giving you a more defined scope to choose from. Here at DRS International School, we offer a wide range of electives across 5 subject groups and offer languages such as French, Spanish & Hindi, in addition to English as First Language (Extended).

 Proficiency in English
With English as a First Language, the high proficiency in English that IGCSE demands, equips learners with exceedingly competent communication skills and confidence. This is the reason several UK and Australian universities allow students with the IGCSE to skip the otherwise mandatory IELTS and TOEFL testing & requirements.

Global Connect, Local Relevance
The IGCSE strongly encourages students to develop a global outlook and promotes international mindedness through its approaches to learning & teaching. However, it also instills in them cultural awareness, and helps them look at global issues through the local lens, to empower them to engage with their communities. IGCSE learners are global citizens in every way.

World-Wide Recognition
One of the biggest benefits the IGCSE offers is acceptance and recognition from the best of universities, organizations, governments and employers around the world for whom the qualification is a sign of competence and excellence. A look at this recognition database will give you a glimpse of just how well-recognized Cambridge is. Several of our students at DRS International School have gone on to excel in universities around the world.

Lessons for Life
With its quality assessments and inquiry based approach to learning, the Cambridge IGCSE ensures that its learners have 21st Century Skills like critical and creative thinking, problem solving abilities etc while also ensuring they master the concepts, knowledge across subject group in a range of real-life contexts.

If we are to summarize and look at the core advantage of IGCSE board, it would be apt to say, that IGCSE not only provides the academic rigor but also prepares today’s students to be international citizens of tomorrow.

IB Vs. CBSE – International Board and CBSE Comparison

IB vs. CBSE – what every parent should know. A detailed comparison of International board and CBSE, helping parents make the right decisions.

IB vs CBSE: What every parent should know

IB, CBSE, IGCSE – confused, what’s best for your child ? With all the choices, it is important for parents to make the right decision. We have written about the Pros and cons of IGCSE earlier. In this article we are going to compare IB vs. CBSE , a typical hard to make decision for every parent looking to put their daughter in school.

Choosing between two curricula can be one of the hardest decisions to make for your child. It is important to define your child’s academic interests and priorities before making such a defining choice. However, knowing the differences between the IB and CBSE curriculum can certainly help you make more informed choices and we’re here to help:

• IB vs. CBSE – The Difference in Approach
  The IB approach is defined by inquiry-based learning and an emphasis on being learner-centric. Students take ownership of their learning experiences and the framework is designed to empower them. Although the CBSE Curriculum is increasingly more holistic in nature, it still remains very exam-driven and primarily focuses on preparing students to master the skills required to excel in them.

• Curriculum Focus
  The IB curriculum is driven by conceptual learning and lays a strong emphasis on transdisciplinarity. The CBSE on the other hand primary emphasises on skill-based education. While IB schools define their own Programme of Inquiry in line with IB guidelines, the CBSE curriculum is in close alignment with the National Curriculum Framework.

• Prospects for Further Education
  Qualifying the IBDP is a gateway for studying in top international universities around the world and the rigour of the DP ensures that students are prepared to tackle the challenges of research and academics at the under-graduate level.
  The CBSE curriculum, on the other hand, equips students with the mastery of content as well as the skills needed to compete in national level exams such as the IIT-JEE and NEET. That being said, students of the CBSE curriculum have also gone on to secure admissions in great universities around the world.
  

• Career Prospects
  Students from the IB Curriculum are the choice of the employers, organizations and governments world-wide who acknowledge the worth of the skill-set these students bring with them, such as the ability to think critically and work collaboratively. CBSE students excel in their graduate programs are general hired by top tech and management companies, accounting firms and the like, usually in India or in companies of Indian-origin. 
  

• Student Outlook
  Given that the CBSE curriculum encourages students to explore national issues and knowledge in the context of the country’s past, it is natural that CBSE students have an in depth understanding of how India places itself in the global context as well as have an understanding of traditional values. In contrast, IB students have a more global outlook and are ‘internationally-minded’, especially given the vast IB network of schools and their focus on human commonalities.

The IB and CBSE curriculum are starkly different, and are based on different conceptualizations of education and its aims. While it is important for a parent to understand the IB vs. CBSE curriculum, it is important for a parent to realize that the academic and cultural needs and profile of each student is different, and every choice regarding the choice of curriculum should ideally be taken keeping this in mind.

Session for Residential students-Rising to the Challenge!

Communicating under pressure isn't easy! Our residential students of Grade VIII proved their mettle in a fun session designed to challenge their communication skills. DRS International School regularly hosts sessions for our residential students to boost their ability to think critically and creatively, as well as communicate effectively. 

The session had our students work as teams to build and replicate identical block models to compete against each other. Each team had a director, a builder and a 'runner', who was tasked with relaying information and instructions from the director to the builder, both of whom were not visible or audible to the other. Students were challenged to think creatively against the time-limit on the clock, and expand their use of vocabulary as certain words such as 'up', 'down', 'above', 'below' etc, were not to be used by the 'runners'. 

The students' listening skills, as well as speaking skills, including the ability to convey meaningful information concisely, were developed through the session. The reflection session that followed the activity, saw students reflect on how the activity helped them collaborate and communicate effectively with members of their teams, and how they could apply these skills in their everyday lives.

TALKING TOK’ - Collaboration in IBDP

The collaborative session was an opportunity for facilitators across disciplines to revisit central concepts and tools in Theory of Knowledge. The session aimed to empower facilitators with a deeper understanding of how TOK tools and concepts could be linked with their respective subjects.

The collaborative session began with facilitators articulating why TOK was needed across the DP through 6-word headlines. The exploration of the TOK thinking skills, saw facilitators work in their respective Groups to link specific skills to concepts and topics within their disciplines.

After working through a checklist of indicators of what characterizes a Knowledge Question in TOK, the facilitators played a fun round of an interactive virtual quiz on Kahoot, to assess their own understanding.

The session also saw facilitators discuss other important TOK concepts such as the acquisition & production of knowledge, personal and shared knowledge, as well as the Areas of Knowledge, disciplines and the Ways of Knowing. The facilitators also chalked out posters of how the Knowledge Framework could be used to strengthen students’ exploration of the different Areas of Knowledge. The session also addressed facilitators questions about assessing student work in TOK.

The collaborative session ended on a reflective note, with facilitators agreeing that the best way to strengthen TOK in the DP was through strengthening collaboration across and within subject groups through TOK!

Cambridge -Metacognition and Effective Classroom talk

A workshop on Metacognition and Effective Classroom Talk, organized by

Cambridge Assessment International Education in Bangalore, was attended by Ms Anuradha, from our school. The workshop was conducted by Ms. Lin Whyte who is an

independent education consultant and a former head teacher.

Metacognition is a way of empowering our learners with the skills wherein they will be able to

plan their aim through the strategies they choose, monitor their own learning, evaluating, making

changes and reflecting on to their own learning behavior. Depending upon the kind of the learner, strategies that should be followed before, during and after a learning experience in order to improve metacognition and develop an environment where

learning thrives.

“Too often, we teach students what to think but not how to think.”

This is possible by developing their metacognitive skills. Effective classroom talk serves as a tool to implement metacognition in classrooms.Metacognition strategies in the classroom can be modeled using effective classroom teaching.Effective classroom talk can improve learning where the flip class practice can be followed and the class would be student driven. Each and every individual learner has its own ways of thinking and there is no right and no wrong.

In today’s learning, silence is as important as effective dialogic talk. On one side it is important

to share and on the other it is also important to reflect.

Dialogic talk harnesses the power to talk to simulate and extend children’s thinking and to

advance their understanding and learning. It also enables the teachers to diagnose and assess.

Dialogic teaching is distinct from the question-answer- tell routines aiming to be more

consistently searching and more genuinely reciprocal and cumulative.

Students will get an exposure to various strategies and practices like:

De Bono’s thinking hats

Think-pair and share

Diamond nine

Silent debate

PMI(Pluses, Minuses and Improvements)

Pose-Pause- Pounce-Bounce

Socratic questioning

See-Think- Wonder

Flowscaping

Digging deeper

Forcefield analysis

Piaget’s stages of development

Metacognitive talk

Talk for learning

Collaborative talk

Exploratory talk

Effective talk

Thunks

IRF (Initiate, Reflect and Feedback)

Dialogic talk and many more.

This would not only help in a better understanding of learning but will also make Cambridge

learners at DRS International School more confident, responsible, reflective, productively engaged and innovative.

Health for All!

World Health Day is observed by people all over the world, every year, on 7th of April, under the call to action of the World Health Organization. Senior Secondary students at DRS International School conducted a special informative assembly to increase awareness among the student community on the importance of self-care, family & community health, besides sharing vital information on the significance of prevention. Tips on ways to stay healthy helped the audience identify practical measures they could follow to take ownership of their health. An interactive quiz on healthy brands and their taglines, promoted awareness of healthy lifestyle and consumer choices.