BINUS: Internationl Baccalaureate Curriculum

BINUS International uses an IB curriculum. What is an IB curriculum? I had to ask, too. IB means International Baccalaureate, which is a "global" themed curriculum that encourages intercultural understanding. I had never heard of IB before I came to Indonesia, but I can see it is an effective approach to curriculum. At BINUS International, all grade levels are scoring higher or significantly higher in at least two or more content areas than the worldwide mean of scores that use ISA testing. ISA tests math literacy, reading, narrative writing, and argument writing.

International Baccalaureate mission statement (derived from: http://www.ibo.org/)

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Culture is thick at BINUS International. In one class alone I had students who were Chinese, Australian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Korean, and British!

Sorry you can see my hand's shadow. This documents how that all grade levels are scoring higher or significantly higher than the world in multiple subject areas.

Example of the curriculum. UOI- Units of Inquiry are the headers for each section. These are the units each grade level teaches every year. A summative task (end of unit project) is done for each UOI : Who We Are, Where We Are In Place and Time, How We Express Ourselves, How the World Works, How We Organize Ourselves, and Sharing the Planet. The EY (early years) grade levels do this in a condensed form. There are three EY's- EY1 ages 3-4), EY2 (ages 4-5), EY3 (ages 5-6). EY1= preschool, and then EY2+EY3= kindergarten, they all go half days.

The lower part of the chart- Key Concepts, Attitudes, Profile, Skills, Text Type, and Reading Strategies are required to be posted in all classrooms. The students are well aware of all of the terms in this chart from grade 1.

PYP= Primary Years Profile, they have a different profile for Middle/High school. Which, by the way, is all in one large building!