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How big are your classes?


HiggsHunter

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Each form in our IB school has about 40-50 students, so there have to be several classes for each subject to keep the maximum number in each class below around 16. Most subjects are available in both English and French, and the average ratio of teaching staff to students is 1:6.

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In MYP in our school, Language A, Language B, Maths, Sciences and Humanities are available in both English and French. PE is available in English and French, except that swimming is only in French! Visual Arts, Technology and Music are only in English, while Dance is only in French and Drama is taught bilingually. German and Spanish are taught only in these languages.

In DP also, not all subjects are currently available in both English and French, although this is changing as the school expands. At present, a Bilingual IB Diploma can be obtained by taking one language A1 and one language A2, or by taking a Group 3 or 4 subject in other than the language A1, or by doing the EE in a Group 3 or 4 subject in other than the language A1. These criteria will change from the May 2013 exam session.

In the Primary department (which does not at present run the PYP) there are three distinct streams: English-only, 'Bilingual English' in which the main emphasis is on English, and 'Bilingual French' in which the emphasis is on French. (There is no French-only stream)

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As long as there are sufficient qualified staff for all the subjects that you are studying, your small class size should allow the teachers to give excellent tuition and follow your progress closely.

But it can be tough to lead off! The first cohort at our school was the only one that did not achieve a mean score exceeding the worldwide average for their exam session.

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our student:teacher ratio is "technically" 10:1, but its more like 16-20:1 heh :D

16-20:1 seems not too bad.

In the "Language in cultural context" section of his book "English Language and Literature for the IB Diploma", author Brad Philpot gives the link:

http://www.ted.com/t...lish_mania.html

These Chinese students of English are not at an IB school of course, but check out the student:staff ratios at 1m15 and 3m03 into the video!

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our student:teacher ratio is "technically" 10:1, but its more like 16-20:1 heh :D

16-20:1 seems not too bad.

In the "Language in cultural context" section of his book "English Language and Literature for the IB Diploma", author Brad Philpot gives the link:

http://www.ted.com/t...lish_mania.html

These Chinese students of English are not at an IB school of course, but check out the student:staff ratios at 1m15 and 3m03 into the video!

yeah i know what you mean

just pointing out the fact that schools seems to always deflate these numbers a little to attract more prospective parents :P

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my school is a small one but is growing quite rapidly!

my class (graduating class of 2012) has only 17 students: 11 doing IB Diploma and 6 doing IB Cert

the IB1 cohort here has two classes @ around 20 students.

and the current pre-IB (IGCSE) cohort has three classes: 2x20 students (actually, not sure of the exact number but it's around 20 students in each class) and 10 students in the other class.

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my school is a small one but is growing quite rapidly!

my class (graduating class of 2012) has only 17 students: 11 doing IB Diploma and 6 doing IB Cert

the IB1 cohort here has two classes @ around 20 students.

and the current pre-IB (IGCSE) cohort has three classes: 2x20 students (actually, not sure of the exact number but it's around 20 students in each class) and 10 students in the other class.

Yes, that's rapid expansion!

Is the division into three pre-IB classes arbitrary, or is it related to ability or the groups of subjects that the students are taking?

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Yes, that's rapid expansion!

Is the division into three pre-IB classes arbitrary, or is it related to ability or the groups of subjects that the students are taking?

hmm I'm not 100% sure actually, but I heard they did put the Add Maths students in one class and the other big class is taking ICT. the small class (the 10 students one) is a special class, it's complicated :P

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My class started with 110 pre-IB kids in grade 9 and now there are only 55 of us writing May 2012 exams...which means a 50% dropout rate :P

The biggest individual IB class was economics SL with 34 people...the smallest was chemistry SL with 11 people. My school refuses to make a class for less than 10 people xP

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The IB section of the school has the 15 of us seniors (total) and then there's about 30-ish juniors. I like it, there's only 4-5 of us taking certain subjects and it's good because the teachers have more time to give us guidance on how to do well, but there's still plenty candidates to whine with about your life being difficult. :P

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My class started with 110 pre-IB kids in grade 9 and now there are only 55 of us writing May 2012 exams...which means a 50% dropout rate :P

The biggest individual IB class was economics SL with 34 people...the smallest was chemistry SL with 11 people. My school refuses to make a class for less than 10 people xP

What did the 55 students who dropped out do?

Could the quality of the teaching staff be one reason why Economics is so much more popular than Chemistry?

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My class started with 110 pre-IB kids in grade 9 and now there are only 55 of us writing May 2012 exams...which means a 50% dropout rate :P

The biggest individual IB class was economics SL with 34 people...the smallest was chemistry SL with 11 people. My school refuses to make a class for less than 10 people xP

What did the 55 students who dropped out do?

Could the quality of the teaching staff be one reason why Economics is so much more popular than Chemistry?

The other 55 just did the regular "academic" program that most people do here.

Yeah, that would be one reason why a lot of people choose economics at my school. My economics teacher was very, very good and my school has done well in economics over the years. Chemistry is one of the weaker subjects because IAs get moderated down a lot every year, plus most people who do IB at my school want to study science/engineering so they choose chemistry HL instead of SL. The teaching staff for chemistry are...meh they're OK I guess...

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