Why I moved my kids to an international school to escape A-levels and study the ‘Bac’

There are rumblings that Rishi Sunak is determined to vastly overhaul our current A-level system, and replace it with International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum favoured in Europe. While some have already balked at the idea, as they have with similar education proposals from the PM (more maths, anyone?), I must say that this time Sunak is right on the money.

Two years ago I moved both my children, aged eight and 10 at the time, from a great school where they had been since they were two and four years old, to another primary school. It meant that my son would only be there for one year before leaving for secondary school, but I made the choice for good reason.

The new primary school had recently become a “feeder” for a secondary school that offers the IB curriculum. That meant they would automatically get a place.

At the time I felt really lucky to get them in. I even remember questioning why everyone wasn’t trying to move their children to the school. A chance to get an automatic place to follow the IB curriculum is surely a no-brainer?

It turns out there wasn’t much of a stampede. And contrary to what I had anticipated – a rush of new admissions to that primary school – I realised that hardly any parents I spoke to locally actually knew that the secondary school offered the IB. In fact, I don’t (yet) know of anyone else that has moved their child to the school for the reason that I did.

It also turns out the Baccalaureate, or “Bac” as it’s known in Europe, isn’t anywhere near as well known in the UK as I thought it was.

Admittedly, I may be a slight anomaly here. I studied Modern Languages at university and so the IB was more familiar to me – I worked for a year in France and studied in Italy alongside friends who had taken the IB diploma. I remember talking to them about it and being baffled that they could fit in studying six or more subjects after the age of 16. Surely it dilutes your knowledge of each subject? Apparently not. In fact, the more I learnt about the IB, the more I became convinced that our A-level curriculum was unnecessarily narrow by comparison.

When I had children, I became more intrigued about education options for them. I found out that the IB is in fact taught in a few schools in the UK; often it is offered alongside the more traditional A-level curriculum. I wouldn’t say I made it a mission to send my kids to a school teaching the IB, but it was always a strong preference, if I could.

Why? Well, it’s more complex than the fact that they can study a broader range of subjects up to the age of 18.

The overarching aim of the IB is to develop internationally minded people. It encourages students to recognise their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet. Its aim is to create a better, more peaceful world and it aspires to develop young people who understand that other people, with their differences and opinions “might be right”.

All sounds lovely doesn’t it? And yes, part of the reason I’m a fan of the IB is because those values are important to me and, I hope that by studying the IB, they will also be important to my children.

Having said that, I don’t think these value-based foundations are necessarily the stuff Rishi is trying to replicate. What he appears to be most interested in is the breadth and balance of this kind of international education – the outcome of which is highly valued by both universities and employers alike.

In our current system, the GCSE to A-level transition is quite an extreme one: students leap from studying nine or 10 subjects up to the age of 16, to just three or four for their A-levels. The traditional argument for this is around “specialisation”, which values depth of subject knowledge above breadth of education.

I can only speak from personal experience, but I honestly had very little idea of the career path I wanted to follow at the age of 15 (which is when you have to choose your A-level subjects). This means we’re effectively forced to decide which academic direction, and potentially career path, we are going to follow at a very young age.

It’s because of this that a friend of mine, who chose to study mainly humanities at A-level, went to university, spent three years getting her degree, then realised she actually wanted to go into medicine. Our narrow system, where she was forced to specialise early, meant she had to go all the way back to square one and retake her science A-levels in order to eventually become a doctor.

Likewise, one of the aspects of the Baccalaureate that Mr Sunak appears to be keen on is the inclusion of Mathematics and English as core subjects right up to the age of 18. Again, I wholeheartedly agree with this principle.

I challenge you to think of a day when you haven’t needed to use either of these subjects. They are the foundations of every other academic subject we study, and they are the pillars of every single job you’ll ever do.

I wasn’t a fan of maths, but I now understand its vital importance. I work in PR and Marketing, not areas where you would expect to be using much maths. Wrong. Every single day I’m required to use budgets, to talk to the finance director, to explain company financial results to journalists. Not once at the age of 16 did I ever consider that maths would be such a huge part of my life.

And this is why the education system desperately needs reform. We’ve followed the A-level system since 1951. In today’s world, where global economies are so interconnected, it’s no longer fit for purpose. Our system is a hindrance to creative and academic potential.

So yes, let’s look at it all again. Let’s take learnings from the IB and from elsewhere, and give our kids more holistic and empowering educational opportunities than we had.