4 Issue 54 – October 2015 – QUEEN MARGARET CALLING
O ur goal is to be fully authorised mid 2016 for MYP so
teachers have been hard at work rewriting planning
documents and undertaking professional development,
including an in-school session led by the IB Organisation trainers.
Becoming an IB Continuum World School with three programmes
authorised provides consistency across the College of policies and
practice so we are looking forward to realising this. Being part of
the global network of 4,000 IB schools in 149 countries provides
so many advantages and opportunities, including meeting up with
like-minded educators.
Mid-year I was fortunate to attend the IB Conference for the
Americas in Chicago. Over 1900 participants were in attendance,
the majority being primary and secondary teachers from North
and South America. Unlike Asia Pacific and Europe, where most
IB schools are private, the majority of IB programmes in the USA
are delivered by state schools with the explicit aim of providing
challenging opportunities for underserved and aspirational
From the Principal
Last year, the College reached a milestone: the first five year evaluation of the two authorised
International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes, the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and the
IB Diploma that we offer. A professional development focus this year has been the
implementation of the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) for Years 7 - 10.
students. At the conference successful alumni from Chicago’s South-
side, a part of the city where Michelle Obama grew up, described
how succeeding in the IB Diploma provided them with the requisite
skills, knowledge and confidence to take them from a crime-ridden
project to an Ivy League university.
The keynote speaker who closed the event was Sir Ken Robinson
PhD, an internationally respected leader in the development of
creativity and innovation in education and in business. A wry
Liverpudlian from humble beginnings, Robinson has lived in the
USA for the past fifteen years. His website and videos talks on
the prestigious TED Channel about creativity are worth looking
at. His message was this: in the USA especially but also globally,
there has been a strong emphasis in schools on narrowly focused
standard-based assessment. This has not had the desired effect of
lifting educational achievement. Indeed, too narrow a focus stifles
creativity, an essential attribute in the dynamic modern world.
Robinson, a supporter of the IB programmes, advocated for a broad
based, holistic education which challenged students to be creative
scholars.
In this edition there are a range of examples that demonstrate
how the College is fostering and celebrating creativity. Above are
Year 3 students acting out their French plays, a part of the PYP
and, to the left, Senior IB Diploma Biology students learning
about metagenomics and performing DNA analysis of soil micro
organisms at Victoria University
I hope you enjoy learning about the remarkable achievements of
both current and former Queen Margaret College scholars.
Carol Craymer