CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — After three years of preparation and planning, Beaumont School has been officially authorized as an International Baccalaureate Programme World School, making it the only all-girls school in Greater Cleveland to earn the distinction.
“It’s really the gold standard in education around the world,” said Anne Jarrad, Beaumont vice president of institutional advancement. “A little less than 1,000 high schools in the U.S. have this distinction. In Cleveland, we’re only the second Catholic school (in addition to St. Edward High School) to be an IB school.”
Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, International Baccalaureate offers four educational programs, each designed for a different age group. The programs have been developed to put an emphasis on encouraging students to inquire, research, perform critical analysis and make choices while at the same time making a commitment to better their local community and the world.
“This is a values-based curriculum that has as its center a great difference in how classes are taught and how students learn,” said Nick Beyer, Beaumont dean of academics and IB coordinator. “Exams are actually called ‘papers,’ and (students) are not answering someone else’s questions, they’re writing their own answers.”
Traditional forms of education have been based on memorization and featured the same content for all students.
“It’s really been teacher-centered,” Beyer said of methods commonly used, noting that what is learned is based on the teacher’s dictates and knowledge. “This is more about the student.”
IB teaches all students to do critical thinking and to make decisions for themselves. Jarrad noted that students are not swayed to think in any certain political way or commercial way.
The IB learner profile states that students will strive to be inquirers, thinkers, knowledgeable, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, balanced, reflective, and risk takers.
“That’s important, that they be risk takers,” Jarrad said. “Students are not normally taught to take risks, but that’s often how we reach our full potential.”
At the 350-student Beaumont School, the IB Diploma Programme will be offered to juniors and seniors who choose to take part. All students, however, will be permitted to take one or more individual IB classes that will be offered beginning in the fall.
The IB Diploma Programme is made up of six subject groups encompassing an international scope.
They include studies in language and literature; language acquisition (languages offered include French, Latin and Spanish); individuals and societies (classes offered here are history and psychology); sciences (biology, design technology and physics); mathematics; and the arts (music and visual arts).
In conjunction with these classes, students in the IB Diploma Programme will be expected to work outside the school, in many cases for non-profit organizations, and complete extended essays of at least 4,000 words in which they state the results of their research, based on critical thought.
The IB Programme is also known for teachers’ rigorous assessment of students’ work. The criteria for assessment, like the curricula developed, was guided by the IB organization.
“This is also important to the community at large,” Jarrad said. “The community benefits through the service element within this program.”
In coordinating the program, Beyer said, teachers have traveled the country speaking to those who have been teaching the IB Programme.
“For the past three years, our faculty and administration have worked tirelessly to write course curriculums and have collaborated regularly with each other and educators around the globe,” he said.
“This will help our students tremendously when they apply to colleges,” Jarrad said, adding that the entire graduating class of 2016 enrolled in colleges or universities and earned $11.8 million in scholarships. “It will even help students who don’t take the entire program but have taken IB classes.”
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