Developing your understanding of the history and philosophies of the IB.

There are many IB Education Trends from the 1960s that also align with the CfE in many ways. For example, ‘Student Choice’ aligns with the CfE because one of the principles in CfE is ‘Personalisation and Choice’. This trend is vital in both IB and CfE because pupil voice is extremely important in schools in order to make the schools the best possible place to learn for the pupils. If they can get a say on how they are learning it gives teachers an idea of how to find an approach that works best for the pupils which helps the teachers evaluate their techniques. It also allows pupils to learn in a way that interests and stimulates them.

Secondly, I believe that the trends ‘Range of Skills Testing’, ‘Constructivism’ and ‘Transdisciplinarity’ align with the CfE principle ‘Relevance’. I think this because being taught a range of skills is needed for every day life because the more skills a person has, the better for their futures later in life.  ‘Transdisciplinarity’ is similar to interdisciplinary learning in CfE which is connecting lots of curricular areas to enhance learning across all areas. Transdiciplinary skills are skills that are valuable in the classroom but also outside of school, hence why the trend aligns with the CfE principle ‘Relevance’ because these skills are necessary for living. ‘Constructivism’ is building knowledge from experiences and the fact that the experiences in both IB and CfE schools are ‘relevant’, it means that the knowledge they build up is beneficial for later in life as well as in school.

The trends ‘Child-centred’ and ‘Education of the whole child’ align with the CfE because in CfE the child is the focus of everything in the school. The children are the most important thing and it is the teachers job to give them the best quality education in both IB and CfE schools.

Finally, I believe that the trend ‘Criterion-referenced’ aligns very well with CfE. In the CfE lessons are planned out with reference to the Experiences and Outcomes documents across every curricular subject area. This makes sure that for every lesson there is a distinct learning intention and helps the teacher to provide suitable success criteria that are achievable and realistic. This helps the teacher to make lessons the best they can. Benchmarks and guidelines are also available for teachers in CfE which is even more beneficial to help create interesting lessons for all pupils.