IN NEED OF ADVICE : quitting teachers and IB

[Hadassah]

Hello folks, 

As the title suggests, I need your advice on what to do and how to manage a teacher's resignation. 

I'm one of the first ever cohort of my school's IB programme and basically, we're guinea pigs. Our school is starting to get a grasp of things, but in my opinion, they could have been more prepared.

Anyhow, a lot of teachers ,4 to be precise, have left my school in the past 15 months of starting IB. (Pretty high turnover rate right?  ) At one point, we didn't have chemistry for 3 months and we had to go in for triple chem on Saturdays. This is my second year in IB and I just received a notice that my maths teacher resigned today. I'm really worried about not finishing the syllabus in time because I've heard that it's difficult to replace a maths teacher--I don't know how true that is tho. And there's the whole IA junk to worry about. 

Please give me some advice on what I should and what I can do in this situation.

Thank you!

[IBGeek]

Hi, 

I am in the first IB class ever at my school too. I know how you feel. I think that due to a lack of experience, we miss a lot of stuff in the syllabus. The best advice someone gave me is to just start teaching myself whatever I think the teachers missed at school. You have the syllabus. Get yourself a good textbook and if it's possible, maybe even a tutor experienced with teaching IB students. If you have friends in other IB schools, study with them. That may also help you fill the gap in your learning. 

I know my advice will only take you so far, but give it a try. You have the problem of resigning teachers too. I can't really speak to that as I have not experienced a problem like this. Hopefully someone else can give you advice for this.

I wish you luck!

[kw0573]

I offer some new advice in light of new information. I propose large, organized group study sessions. I think it's necessary to use the brainpower of entire grade because even if you were to get a professional tutor in every subject, not to mention the costs, you will not perform well if you are surrounded by people who do poorly. 

1) For all your classmates, unite them in conquering IB together. Ensure that everyone has the willpower. Exchange contact information for EVERYONE. You may have to convince some people to give up and unnecessary extracurriculars just to everyone can have group study sessions at least twice a week. 

2) Have each person study ahead in 1 subject most comfortable in. Make sure there are at least 1 to 2 students whose main job is to maintain contact with IB coordinators and ensure all your assessments are submitted on time. Plan regular (biweekly ?) grade meetings either during lunch, or before/after school to teach each other topics. People who are learning ahead in the same subject should collaborate to teach everyone the necessary contents. Delegate few others to organize these meetings and ensure people do their fair share of contributing to the group. 

Syllabus for your classes can be found, for free, here: 

 

 

[M.J]

The best advice I could give is get your classmates together and start teaching yourself. My situation is quite different from yours, but I feel for you in that my Business teacher hasn't got a clue what he is doing, and spends every class talking about how much he hates his life, and, as a result, he has never actually taught us anything. So what my friends and I did was that we got together in working through the business syllabus, helping and teaching each other, and that has worked out pretty well (we're hoping - exams in a few months so I guess we'll find out!). Good luck!