As we reach the end of March we feel it is important to focus upon our progress with accreditation for the IBO Middle Years Program (MYP). As many of you in the community know, on Thursday and Friday, March 25th and 26th, ISD welcomed the IBO virtually to do a final accreditation visit to verify our accreditation as an official IBO MYP school and therefore to finally become a three-program IB world School offering Primary Years, Middle Years and IB Diploma program to our students.
The visit represents the culmination of three years of work led admirably by Ms. Jen Loria, our MYP Coordinator. Despite the challenges of Covid-19 preventing a face-to-face visit, all members of our community have been interviewed by the virtual visiting team from IBO and we expect to receive confirmation of our final accreditation in the coming weeks. Congratulations to us all!
In light of the collaborative work we are doing regarding diversity and inclusion at the school, it is wonderful to know that the IBO also has that important work at the heart of its mission statement and continues to be a world leader in approaches to education that value diversity, inclusion, and equality for all under the label of global competence. The linked article identifies how different schools in the IB community are identifying local requirements in a global context from decolonizing the curriculum to understanding and appreciating the perspectives of others. The graphic below also identifies, from the article, collaborative work taking place between the IBO and OECD as well as PISA.
We are extremely lucky to be a part of this globally networked community working hard to make the world a better place. Additionally, the groundbreaking work taking place at ISD around inclusion, diversity, and equality provides our springboard for a local context to the work. We encourage you to read the blog article in more detail and engage in conversation with your children at home.
On other things, we wish to congratulate our IB Diploma students of Visual Arts and Theater. It seems a long time ago that we had our last school event at the Radisson hotel in March 2020, which was our DP Arts showcase. This year, to a smaller audience of family, friends, and teachers our Theatre and Visual Arts students for the Class of 2021 provided a wonderful opening event in our new Performing Arts Center. We are delighted to provide some photographs of the event here for all of our community to enjoy as well as on our Facebook and Instagram pages.