Come September 2017 the Wellington Catholic District School Board will be the second Catholic board in the province to offer the International Baccalaureate program at both the primary and secondary levels.
At the Nov. 7 board meeting trustees voted to allow the International Baccalaureate (IB) primary years program to come to Sacred Heart Catholic School in Guelph, making it a global learning and innovation centre, director of education Tamara Nugent explained to the Advertiser on Nov. 8.
“This is a program that really respects students’ natural curiosity and there will be an enhanced French component to the curriculum and as with all of our schools we work really hard to ensure that the teaching and the learning is exemplary and this is another program opportunity for our students,” she said.
“The program is actually focused on 21st century learning skills and it’s rooted in inquiry learning that values social justice and I would say global citizenship as well.”
While the new IB program will be housed at Sacred Heart Guelph it will be open to all students throughout the board; however, priority will be given to current Sacred Heart students and other children within the school’s boundary before being opened up to the rest of the board.
“This is a whole school approach so all of the grades from junior kindergarten to Grade 8 will be part of the IB program,” Nugent said.
“It’s a faith-based Catholic education that uses Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum and a framework through IB that also has a scope and sequence for students.”
Because the school is under-utilized Nugent said she is confident there will be spots available for out-of-boundary students in the program’s inaugural year in September 2017. The enrolment process is still being discussed.
“We’re in the process of establishing our steering committee and we will be looking at all those operational components of the program and communicating those with our community once we have those fully articulated,” Nugent said.
“So we needed the go-ahead first before we were going to start all that planning.”
Wellington Catholic is no stranger to IB programs, it currently runs an IB diploma program at Bishop MacDonnell Catholic High School in Guelph. The primary years program is not a requirement for enrolment in secondary IB.
“This decision to add IB programming for primary students is one of the first we can link back to our new strategic plan and our focus on innovating for student success,” board chair Marino Gazzola said in a press release.
“We are excited about what this will mean for families in Guelph looking for this innovative approach to education.
“This is a unique opportunity for our board to take a significant step forward with another program of excellence.”
French immersion
At the same board meeting on Nov. 7 the Wellington Catholic trustees decided it wasn’t feasible to begin a French immersion program in the board.
“When we completed all of the research in terms of what we are observing is happening provincially, looking at our site planning needs and the analysis of budget implications, the challenges with respect to staffing that we felt this was not the right timing for us and that we would look to revisit French language programming at a future date,” Nugent explained.
“So our priority right now is going to be the implementation of the IB primary years program.”
However, she did go on to say that the French immersion program isn’t completely off the table.
“We would be looking for some things to change in terms of what we’ve just learned and would be open to revisit that discussion … and look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities if that changes for the future,” she said.
Nugent said more information about the IB program would be becoming available so the board can work with the community on the implementation of the new primary years program.
Sacred Heart Guelph has to successfully offer the program for a year before full accreditation will be granted.
