'Gold' for Wellington College's First Middle Years Programme Cohort

3rd August 2012

Pioneering pupils score more than double the global average for international qualification

A pioneering group of 16 year olds in England is celebrating world-beating results today in a radical alternative education programme to GCSEs.

The 67 Wellington College pupils taking the Middle Years Programme (MYP) from the International Baccalaureate Organisation scored more than double the average scored by schools taking the qualification around the world. They achieved outstanding grades, with 73.3% at grade 7 and 6, the top two grades possible for the qualification, compared with 31% achieving this globally.

Wellington College decided to offer the MYP for those pupils interested in careers in the global workplace or who wanted a different sort of challenge from GCSEs.  About a third of the pupil cohort for the year chose to follow the qualification instead of GCSEs. The MYP, which is aimed at 11-16 year olds, is a radical approach to curriculum and assessment relative to the incumbent GCSE/iGCSE approach. The programme encourages students to think for themselves, reflect on their learning, make challenging connections across disciplines, solve problems, actively find solutions rather than passively accepting, memorising and regurgitating information, and to delight in the whole process of learning as they do so.  Schools choose what and how they teach, there are no external exams at the end of Year 11.

Michael Milner, Director of Studies at Wellington College, said: “We have worked closely with the IB over the last four years to ensure that our students have had the most enriching education experience possible: both academically rigorous and stretching. Teachers have been allowed to design their own courses, free from the constraints of exam board syllabuses. It gives pupils a holistic approach to learning, allowing them to explore links between subjects, encouraging a 21st Century approach to knowledge rather than the pigeon-holed nature of the current national exam system.  Our pupils will continue to feel the benefit of their choice of qualification through Sixth Form, university and work, as they will have developed a greater understanding of their own strengths as learners.”

Wellington College is regarded as the most progressive IB school in the country, the only major school doing two IB programmes. The school’s is extremely positive about its decision to offer the MYP programme and pupils have spoken warmly about the experience of MYP study. The school’s head, Dr Anthony Seldon, has campaigned for all schools to be free to adopt the MYP.

Undergraduate admissions heads at both Cambridge and Oxford are supportive of the MYP. Geoff Parks, director of undergraduate admissions at Cambridge, has said that it  “provides a much more engaging, stimulating, stretching and generally satisfactory experience”.  Mike Nicholson of Oxford told Wellington that that “candidates who wish to be stretched should, in my view, take the MYP. The rigour and work ethic it encourages will assist them strongly if they wish to progress to a degree that will require them to really engage with their subject discipline”.

For more information: www.wellingtoncollege.org.uk




 

 

 

 


     
             
     
INDEPENDENT EDUCATION TODAY | All rights reserved 2010, for more information please contact us at ie@schoolspublishing.co.uk
Discover our sister titles -UNI | Building 4 Education
Our TERMS & CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY